Lehvoss North America Collaborates with Forward Engineering North America

LEHVOSS North America, LLC announces a formal collaboration with Forward Engineering North America (FENA), LLC in Royal Oak, MI, a division of Forward Engineering GmbH.

The collaboration between the two companies aims to fill the “knowledge gap” in design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) in support of the automotive industry by providing guidance in translating performance characteristics between additive manufacturing (AM) parts and injection molded parts, the companies say. 

With the introduction of LEHVOSS’s range of 3D printing materials including LUVOSINT and LUVOCOM 3F into the North American market, the range of applications for polymers has been extended.

The LEHVOSS materials, with their application-specific properties are based on almost all available thermoplastics and are custom compounded to individual customer requirements. 

Solutions provided by LEHVOSS include a family of high performance compounds, available in pellet, filament and powder formats for FFF and powder bed fusion AM, that meet the requirements of automotive OEM applications.

“Automotive OEMs and suppliers want to accelerate product development through the production of functional structural prototypes with Additive Manufacturing (AM). 3F Printing offers a relatively fast and cost-effective means to produce these functional structural prototype parts that meet demanding performance requirements,” says Martin Popella, sales & business development manager at LEHVOSS North America. 

Forward Engineering has developed a 3F Twin Process to guide OEMs and Tiers in the translation of their product requirements to functional structural 3F printed parts which emulate the performance of their injection molded twin part.

Together, LEHVOSS and FENA have established an AM Lab in Royal Oak, MI to support automotive manufacturing and product development engineers to accelerate their product development programs. At the LEHVOSS /Forward Engineering AM lab, engineers can work with the team to select the right materials and processes to meet their application requirements and in many cases realize functional prototypes produced on site.

“Successful product development requires the right mix of design, material and process,” says Adam Halsband, Forward Engineering North America’s managing director. “The LEHVOSS/Forward Engineering collaboration and establishment of the AM lab in the center of the North American automotive product development region brings these resources together in a responsive package that is accessible to the engineers that need them.”

Summarizing, Popella highlighted a key goal of this collaboration, “Local support and bringing expertise around 3D printing together will create a hub for the 3DP value chain further strengthening the region and accelerating the deployment of additive manufactured components at automotive OEMs and tier suppliers.”

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