HP and Materialise Team Up to Drive Volume 3D Printing

Materialise and HP Inc. announced a strategic partnership at Formnext to integrate HP’s Multi Jet Fusion and Metal Jet additive manufacturing (AM) technology into the Materialise CO-AM software platform. 

“To scale additive manufacturing, the industry is in need of printers that are designed for high productivity coupled with an integrated end-to-end workflow solution—the partnership between HP and Materialise delivers this solution,” says Arvind Rangarajan, global head of Software and Data, HP Personalization and 3D Printing.

HP delivers industrial 3D printing solutions that are manufacturing-ready. In combination with the Materialise CO-AM Software Platform, manufacturers can link HP’s Multi Jet Fusion and Metal Jet technology to their existing production systems and optimize the AM workflow from order entry to delivery.

As an HP preferred partner, Materialise will provide an end-to-end manufacturing solution that is integrated with an additive technology that is designed for productivity and scale—MJF and Metal Jet systems. As part of this partnership, HP will help customers identify use cases for the software platform, as well as showcase the solution at HP demo facilities and public events.  

“Manufacturers are increasingly using 3D printing for end-use parts instead of solely in the prototyping and design phase,” says Bart Van der Schueren, chief technology officer of Materialise. “This partnership will help drive this shift by supporting more efficient, repeatable volume production.”

The connectivity between HP AM technology and Materialise CO-AM enables users to create workflows that improve traceability, quality control and machine use. Optimized 3D print job management allows production leads to track planned and actual printer activities and optimize machine time. To ensure continuous production, real-time machine monitoring provides operators and engineers with process data, including build status, material usage and machine sensor data. This data can be collected and stored in log files of 3D-printed jobs to enhance traceability and quality control.

In addition, Metal Jet users can connect process-relevant HP machinery to the CO-AM platform, such as the Powder Management Station, Curing Station, and Powder Removal Station. This integration allows Metal Jet users to streamline the post-processing of metal parts.

CO-AM includes Materialise’s data and build preparation capability from Magics, which connects to HP 3D printers via the HP Build Processor. Users benefit from a toolset to prepare 3D printing jobs for all major AM technologies. They can add workflow automation for repetitive tasks and use nesting to maximize the number of parts per job to increase machine use.

CO-AM provides access to complementary solutions from Materialise and third parties, including CO-AM partner solutions for design automation, mass customization, automated labeling and post-processing technologies. CO-AM enables AM users to connect and manage technologies from different machine builders over one platform.

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