Additive Industries Launches Cooperative to Reduce Cost of Consumables for 3D printing

During FormNext 2019 in Frankfurt, Germany, Additive Industries launched a new initiative to pool the volume of generic consumables and services. The Additive Manufacturing Quality Co-operative (working title) is a not-for-profit entity that unites the customers of Additive Industries and allows them to pool the volume of metal powders, gases and generic services like testing of witness coupons, hipping of parts and other services where the volume normally is low, prices are high and lead-time is long.

By joining forces with its customers, Additive Industries can standardize and control the quality of its consumable supply, especially the metal powders without increasing the cost. Whereas for other system manufacturers consumables are a revenue stream, Additive Industries has regarded this mainly as a cost reduction opportunity because of its focus to continuously reduce the total cost per part. The not-for-profit co-operative allows Additive Industries and its customers to offset the increased quality requirements of demanding markets like aerospace and medical, according to the company. 

In more Additive Industries news, the company launched a new partnership with Fraunhofer Project Center at the University of Twente and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen, Germany. Ampower, an additive manufacturing consultancy, concluded in their independent benchmark study "Productivity Evaluation for Metal Additive Manufacturing Systems" that Additive Industries’ MetalFAB1 systems combine the lowest system investment with the lowest total cost per part and highest annual capacity.

They tested four typical parts from various industries like medical hip implants, impellors from oil and gas industries, and parts from the automotive and aerospace industry. In all cases the MetalFAB1 won over the 15 other 3D metal systems using laser or electron beam melting technology included in the benchmark. Furthermore, Additive Industries sold a MetalFAB1 system to the Fraunhofer Project Center at the University of Twente and has entered into a strategic collaboration with them and their colleagues in the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT. The main aim of this partnership is to qualify new materials, improve design guidelines, increase post-processing expertise, and enable the integration of metal additive manufacturing into industrial process chains for broad industry acceptance.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.