How Onsite Additive Manufacturing can help you ship a factory?
Technical Focus | 21 November 2021
After having revolutionized the industrial design and prototyping industries, Spare Parts 3D believes that 3D printing is the solution for replacement spare parts.
Maritime, power and energy, industrial machinery, transportation: our industries are used to a traditional way of supplying spare parts, where a defective spare part can take days to be replaced by a qualified supplier.
It is a real challenge for the manufacturers to significantly reduce lead time for delivery.
Being portable, additive manufacturing facilities are flexible enough to be implemented and used onsite. With a decentralized production, it is possible to remove all issues from the supply chain related to third parties (international order, production, lead times), storage, and transportation (shipment, customs clearance).
To foster this new level of flexibility, Lloyd’s Register imagined a solution implementing an AM facility into a shipping container, to be able to move all the “factory” in once while being able to work remotely.
A shipping container can be linked to a power source, have a humidity and temperature control device, a gas detection and extraction system, and an anti-static floor mat. Therefore, a shipping container offers a safe environment for the workers against AM risks but also against external risks (fire, extreme conditions).
It is also large enough to hold all the equipment required to print spare parts: the AM machine itself, but also the reserves of consumables (Powder storage, Gas supply, Powder recycling unit, storage space for printed parts), the post-processing equipment (Air Blower, Heat treatment, finishing tools) as well as the safety equipment (Clothing, respiration, glasses, fire extinguisher).
Turning a shipping container into a factory is a bold and ambitious project. As experts in 3D printing, Spare Parts 3D is reviewing the solution to derive maximum benefits from the portability of Additive Manufacturing.
And you, how do you take benefit from 3D printing technologies?
Follow Us!