SouthMACH 2017 OPTIMISING BUSINESS WITH THE NEXT GENERATION OF 3D TECHNOLOGY 3D Printing continues to show massive growth with the evolution of hardware, software and an ever-expanding collection of usable materials. 3D Systems is the inventor of 3D Printing and the only company offering the “full digital thread” including design, manufacturing, software, hardware and scanning solutions. Fuji Xerox supply and support their full portfolio of state-of-the-art Additive Manufacturing equipment in New Zealand and provide local support and service, finance and consumables. With a comprehensive range encompassing seven technologies and 120 different materials, Fuji Xerox can help companies unleash their full potential by creating prototypes and end-use production parts in a range of materials including plastic, metal, wax and nylon. Precision Art Gary Meaden and his team provide customised production services to New Zealand’s high-end jewellers. His focus on creating highly precise parts made him an early adopter of 3D technology to support his exacting professional standards. Investing in CAD and 3D Printing, Gary quickly carved out a specialist niche. However, as the years went by his 3D Print devices revealed their limitations. It could take up to 80 hours to output one wax piece, and once cast in metal, the final part needed extensive hand finishing. This impacted his profitability, and a printer failure would set him and his agreed delivery schedule back by days. To improve turnaround time, Gary invested in the ProJet 3600W 3D Printer from Fuji Xerox in late 2016. “The printing quality of the ProJet is far better. There are no layer lines to remove, and finishing can be done with a light sanding rather than having to file it intensively. We can now output in two hours. And with the ProJet’s larger plate size we can gang up more pieces in a run, so we’re getting better value.” Jewellers using Gary’s services benefit from faster and more consistent turnaround for their own clients and Gary’s print costs have gone down by two thirds, a cost-benefit he’s passing on. “Our clients get a better margin, a better product and a more reliable service.” A profile of success APL Window Solutions are New Zealand’s largest window and door systems supplier. The head office in Hamilton contains a major design, production and warehousing facility which develops, extrudes, surface-finishes and distributes profiles to over 70 manufacturers around the country. APL started using 3D Printers to make system prototypes in the late 1990s, by outsourcing work to 3D Systems in Australia. While appreciating the potential of 3D Printing, they also discovered the limitations. It took 5 to 7days to produce and receive prototypes. They dabbled with home/hobbyist style 3D Printers over the years but found they spent too much time cleaning off the supports from the printed output to get the models finished to a useable level. After engaging with Fuji Xerox, APL bought the ProJet 2500 Plus in early 2017. The ProJet was quick to install and the team mastered using it within hours. Darryl Vooght, Design and Innovation Manager for APL, heads up New Product Design. “With the ProJet it now takes about a day to output a whole plate’s worth of prototypes,” says Darryl. “Once printed, we put them in a bath where the wax supports are fully dissolved. Within an hour, we have a model that looks like our design. And once painted, the models are indistinguishable from the real thing.” While 3D prototyping is now standard in the window and door industry, Darryl thinks the ProJet helps them maintain their competitive edge. And with the super-fast output time, they are printing more than ever before. Plastic fantastic Tekplas provides leading-edge plastic engineering technology and services to a range of technical industries in New Zealand and abroad, including human nutritional health, animal health, agricultural, dairy, and industrial moulding. The company also has the capability to bring products to market. The Tekplas product development team was wowed by the speed of a 3D Systems ProJet 3500 they saw in action at Fuji Xerox’s show room. The company wanted to speed up the prototype and design phase on their own and customer products - and the ProJet ticked all the boxes.---Deleted sentence-Tekplas uses the ProJet to check the viability of design and promotional models, and to produce printed patterns for investment casting. “The ProJet allows us to complete a design and print the parts overnight,” says Neil Ward, Planning and Manufacturing Support Manager for Tekplas, “We can check the fit of components to customer requirements or our own assembly components, prior to final tool design and before committing to any tool/die manufacture. By doing this all in-house, we also maintain a higher level of confidentiality during the design stage of our projects.” No matter what your application, if you can imagine it you can print it, and Fuji Xerox can help. Contact: FUJI XEROX NEW ZEALAND Phone +64 9 356 4200 Web: www.fujixerox.com/3D Or email contactcentre@nzl.fujixerox.com 22 April 2017
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