HP Accelerates Customers’ Digital Manufacturing Journey

Nov. 13, 2019, ahead of the formnext 2019 additive manufacturing conference, HP announced a series of innovative new subscriptions and services to help customers more easily integrate 3D printing into their digital manufacturing strategies. To further enable customers to transform their manufacturing, HP also announced a series of expanded industrial partnerships and is showcasing innovative new applications and use cases with industry leaders such as Siemens, Volkswagen, and many more.

Image via HP

“The journey to digital manufacturing requires much more than just technology. Customers want integrated solutions coupled with convenient capital models providing the predictability, transparency, and flexibility to quickly scale their businesses,” said Ramon Pastor, interim President of 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing, HP Inc. “Our offerings lower the barriers to adoption for industrial companies to more easily deploy HP’s best-in-class 3D printing solutions. And these are just the first steps — we will continue collaborating with customers and partners to pioneer new models unlocking and accelerating the power of digital manufacturing.”

Lowering Barriers to Adoption for Customers, Unlocking Capital Flexibility and Business Agility

As customers scale to mass production with 3D printing, HP is providing a variety of new options to help them improve business agility and speed their transformation to digital manufacturing, including:

• The new HP 3D as a Service (3DaaS) Base subscription service provides customers automatic replenishment of HP 3D Supplies, simplified tracking of billing and usage, and reliable remote and on-site support services. The new pay-per-build service is available for the HP Jet Fusion 5200, HP Jet Fusion 4200, and HP Jet Fusion 500 series 3D solutions.
• The new HP 3D as a Service (3DaaS) Plus subscription offering integrates hardware, supplies, and services and is ideal for customers looking to accelerate product life cycles with optimized in-house rapid prototyping and final part production. The initial 3DaaS Plus subscription starts with the HP Jet Fusion 340 solution, with additional 3DaaS subscriptions to be introduced.
• HP is expanding the HP Digital Manufacturing Network with new partners Prototal in Europe and Solize in Japan. The HP Digital Manufacturing Network is a global community of digital manufacturing service providers with a proven capability for high-quality, high-volume Multi Jet Fusion and Metal Jet part production. Customers around the world can access this distributed network of plastics and metals parts providers to quickly scale up parts production when and where they need.

Image via HP

Expanded Industry 4.0 Alliances Deliver Applications, Materials, and Post-Processing Innovation

New collaborations across the ecosystem will help customers realize the full potential of digital manufacturing. HP is committed to a broad partner strategy on behalf of customers and today announced several expanded industrial alliances, including:

• Siemens and HP are showcasing new serial production-ready parts designed with two leading automotive industry suppliers. Leveraging the recently announced HP + Siemens additive manufacturing solution, automotive engineering expert EDAG has developed a topology-optimized active coolant distributor for electric vehicles and Adient, a global leader in automotive seating for all major automakers, is creating a new seat headrest optimized for size and light-weighting without compromising material strength and flexibility.
• Lubrizol, a leading global specialty chemical company and an existing HP 3D printing materials partner, is announcing ESTANE® 3D TPU M95-A, a new certified powder-based thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material for HP Jet Fusion 4200 3D printing solutions. TPU is ideal for flexible and elastic parts and opens up new market opportunities for HP’s 3D printing customers. The new Lubrizol TPU complements HP’s existing High Reusability PA-12, PA-12 Glass Beads, PA-11, and BASF Ultrasint TPU materials.
• AM Solutions, a division of the Rösler group, a world leader in the equipment, process technologies and consumables for the automed post processing and surface finishing of 3D printed parts, and HP unveiled a new partnership aimed at bringing an industrial ready and scalable 3D printing post-processing workflow to customers. Additionally, AM Solutions plans to use the HP Jet Fusion 5200 Series 3D solution for design and optimization of its own products, and offer Multi Jet Fusion design, part production, and finishing services to its end customers.

Journey to Mass Production: More Than 18 Million Multi Jet Fusion Parts and Metal Jet Milestones

HP’s portfolio of 3D printing solutions – prototyping and production, plastics and metals – is seeing strong customer adoption across numerous industries. More than 18 million parts were produced with HP Multi Jet Fusion in the last 12 months alone.

Image via HP

Earlier this year, HP launched the Jet Fusion 5200 Series 3D solution, its most advanced plastics solution to date. Avid, a product development firm specializing in manufacturing efficiency, Weerg, a rapidly growing manufacturing parts provider, Yazaki, a global automotive parts supplier and wire harnessing specialist, and Extol, an engineering and parts producer for the automotive and other industries, are among early users achieving improved operational efficiency and greater productivity.

“HP is providing so much more than a 3D printer, they have truly delivered a full solution for volume final parts production,” said Doug Collins, Founder and Co-Owner, Avid Product Development. “Our ability to use the new hardware, data, software, and services to improve all aspects of our operational productivity and efficiency along with the innovative features and new materials like TPU has brought tremendous value to Avid and our customers.”

Last year Volkswagen Group selected HP Metal Jet as the foundation for its strategy to industrialize additive manufacturing. Volkswagen and HP are executing a multi-year design and production roadmap and recently crossed an important milestone. In partnership with GKN Powder Metallurgy, the companies completed a production run of more than 10,000 high quality parts produced in just a few weeks to support the visionary ID.3 electric vehicle launch event.

Source: HP