Essentium Makes Additive Manufacturing-Powered Supply Chains a Reality

Digital transformation is affecting every aspect of business operations, from resource procurement to end-user delivery. New technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, robotics, and autonomous vehicles are reshaping every link in the supply chain, automating and modernizing entire workflows.

While increased visibility into supply chain activities can help manufacturers make better decisions, companies that continue to depend on third party suppliers are not addressing their greatest vulnerability to disruptions in their supply chain: What happens when something – a spare part, a tool, a raw material – just isn’t available through normal channels? Additive manufacturing is a technology that can help overcome unanticipated challenges in supply chain management, no matter how automated.

When suppliers can’t supply, manufacturers can’t manufacture. One hiccup in a finely-tuned supply chain can idle a factory for weeks. 3D printers stand ready and waiting to create whatever is needed to keep production going in a pinch. Print spare parts, jigs, and fixtures in-house when the supply chain fails in spite of the best laid plans, like during this COVID-19 pandemic. But many forward-thinking manufacturers are beginning to view 3D printing as more than an insurance policy against costly supply chain interruptions. They are switching to additive manufacturing-centric workflows to increase self-sufficiency, enhance freedom of design, lower costs, and reduce dependence on or even bypass some suppliers altogether.

Enterprises employing 3D printing as part of their core manufacturing or assembly processes realize benefits including the elimination of lengthy wait times for spare parts or mold development and delivery, reduction in shipping costs and inventory expenses, and the ability to quickly make prototype iterations to get a new part or a customized product just right before committing to mass production. All in addition to insulating the factory floor from unforeseen disruptions in sub-component or raw material supplies. Plus, advancements in filament science combined with the increasing 3D design skills of engineers puts these companies at the leading edge of new product development.

Essentium Brings Production at Scale to Additive Manufacturing

What’s been missing to date is the ability of additive manufacturing to achieve production at scale. It’s one thing to make a prototype or a few parts; it’s quite another to produce quantities in the hundreds or thousands with the quality and consistency of injection- or blow-molding technology, for example. That’s where Essentium comes in. Our exclusive High Speed Extrusion (HSE) 3D Printing Platform is five to 15 times faster than any other 3D printer on the market to deliver the speed required for production at scale. The Essentium HSE 180•S Series uses linear servo motor technology to precisely deposit filament at speeds up to 500 mm per second with 1 micron accuracy for required consistency. Plus, the HSE 3D Printer’s build area is large enough to fit up to 85% of all global jigs and fixtures, or to print the volumes of small parts needed to drive mass production. An array of HSE 3D Printers on the factory floor could easily replace a number of outside suppliers while returning control over quality, cost and innovation to internal decision makers.

Even as things like AI, robotics and autonomous vehicles streamline supply chain management, manufacturers still need alternatives to keep production lines moving. Contact us at Essentium.com to learn more about how an additive manufacturing-powered supply chain can insulate your factory from events beyond your control.

Essentium, Inc. provides industrial 3D printing solutions that are disrupting traditional manufacturing processes by bringing product strength and production speed together, at scale, with an open ecosystem and material set. Essentium manufactures and delivers innovative industrial 3D printers and materials enabling the world’s top manufacturers to bridge the gap between 3D printing and machining to embrace the future of additive manufacturing.