At the beginning of the 21st century, 3D printing was officially introduced into China. In those years, additive manufacturing was on the wane. In fact, many enterprises have begun to contact many years ago. BMW has been betting on additive manufacturing 25 years ago, claiming that it will print more than 1 million parts in 3D by the end of 2018, including 3D printing components such as BMW I8 roadster. "Additive manufacturing has become an integral part of today's global production system and part of our digital strategy," said Milan nedeljkovi Vic, a member of BMW AG's board of directors and responsible for production. In the future, such new technologies will further shorten production time and enable us to make full use of the potential of tool free manufacturing. ".
Recently, BMW has opened a new additive manufacturing center, which will enable the German group to accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing in its activities, whether it is the production of prototypes or bulk parts. The centre has received an investment of 15 million euros and will focus on new 3D printing technology and training related to tool free production deployment worldwide. The group wants to be a leader in 3D technology in the automotive sector.
The new park currently has 80 employees and about 50 industrial, polymer and metal printing solutions, the manufacturer explained. In addition, there are 50 other 3D printers around the world. There are HP multi jet fusion, EOS, SLM, carbon, desktop metal and even nexa3d machines. Daniel Sch è fer, executive vice president of production integration and BMW pilot plant, added: "our goal is to industrialize 3D printing methods in automotive production and to implement new automation concepts in the process chain. This will allow us to simplify the manufacturing of components for mass production and speed up development. At the same time, we work with vehicle development, parts production, procurement and supplier networks, as well as other areas of our business, to systematically integrate technology and use it effectively. " Therefore, BMW center's numerous printing solutions should be able to achieve higher production and more complex parts, so as to design future vehicles.
In addition to production and rapid prototyping, a division of the BMW center will also work on the research and optimization of new materials, technologies and processes: the German group's goal is to automate the additive manufacturing process as much as possible. Therefore, in the long run, it is more feasible and economical. In this case, he also started the industrialization and digitization (IDAM) project for mass production and additive manufacturing of automobiles, which included copying the entire production chain, from preparation for digital production to manufacturing and reprocessing of auto parts. Component. Production is expected to reach at least 50000 serial components per year, with more than 10000 individual parts and spare parts.
Another project, called polyline, focuses on mass production of plastic parts. The aim is to develop a consistent quality assurance approach for the entire process chain and digital links of process steps, thereby reducing manufacturing costs by 50%.
The center provides 3D printing training for employees so that they are all familiar with the technology. Jens Ertel, director of additive manufacturing park, concluded: "to successfully deploy these technologies, we need trained colleagues throughout the network who must fully understand their advantages and characteristics. To use them, designers will need to adopt new ways of thinking and new ways to design the next component. 3D printing can produce almost any shape, paving the way for new designs and new features.
Sources from: https://creality3dpro.store/blogs/news