3D printing on slow rise for auto makers

TROY, Mich.—Auto makers are not short on success stories for their use of additive manufacturing in automotive applications, but several hurdles remain when it comes to accelerating the adoption of 3D printing technology.

Volkswagen A.G., General Motors Co. and BMW A.G., for example, all have a "rich history" of using additive manufacturing to produce spare parts, tooling and other low-volume components, according to Ford Motor Co.'s Ellen Lee. But automotive has specific needs in terms of scale, cost and materials that differ from other industries, such as aerospace and medical, that also are using the technology.

Last year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Lee outlined the Dearborn, Mich.-based auto maker's early achievements with 3D printing. With technology from Carbon Inc., a digital manufacturing startup in Silicon Valley, Ford is designing and producing 3D printed end-use parts on three production vehicles.

"At the time, I mentioned how excited I was because we were really at a tipping point," Lee said during a Jan. 14 industry briefing seminar organized by the Center for Automotive Research.

"In the years since, I think my colleagues in the automotive industry have really delivered," she said. "We've seen so many examples from virtually every single major automotive manufacturer, showing examples and innovative use cases of additive manufacturing across the board."

Common uses for 3D printing in the automotive industry typically have leaned on manufacturing aids such as jigs and fixtures, efforts to increase customization and personalization, spare parts, and low-volume, high-end vehicle applications.

Even with those efforts, the automotive industry still is at the nascent stages in using additive manufacturing for scale production, Lee said.

'Leaps and bounds'

To accelerate its adoption, there is a huge need for everyone—from auto makers and suppliers to 3D printing and technology firms—to come together pre-competitively as an industry to solve the stubborn problems that can't be deciphered alone, she said.

"Each of these successes took a significant amount of work, resources and efforts to solve some problems that might have been solved more easily as a group, as a collaboration," Lee said.

A top priority is developing standards for material and performance specifications as well as quality metrics, which will enable more process control and help drive use and economies of scale. This means working together with other organizations—again, pre-competitively, Lee said—to define those standards and test methods.

"We want to be talking about the same thing across the industry, so that we're comparing apples to apples," she said. "The old rules don't apply."

Jon Walker, automotive specialist and business development manager for industrial 3D printer maker EOS North America Inc., said production speed and part costs are among the top barriers to more widespread use of additive manufacturing in the automotive industry.

But progress has been made.

"Every year, the technology is getting faster and faster," Walker said at the industry briefing. "I've been with EOS for almost four years now, and I can tangibly say that certain materials have gotten half as expensive in that time and certain machines have gotten almost four times more productive. The leaps and bounds are very, very quick, but it's still not quite perfect enough for the automotive industry."

The auto industry shouldn't let perfection be the enemy of good, Lee warned, as doing so would slow down research and development.

"Don't allow the quest for perfection to prevent you from doing good because, although it takes a measurable amount of effort, time, money, resources (and) distance to get from nothing to something, it's going to take an infinite amount of resources to get to perfection, because perfection is a moving target," she said.

Implementing processes as they become available will allow stakeholders working with additive manufacturing to develop fundamental technologies that will help everyone "get to the next step of that ever-moving target," Lee said.

'Tool in the toolbox'

The ongoing transformation of the automotive industry—as conversations and actions toward future mobility concepts continue to crescendo—also is driving the use and development of additive manufacturing.

But Walker, of EOS, is quick to point out that not every part of a vehicle is going to be 3D printed.

"I think that's a bit of a crazy utopian idea," he said, adding that traditional manufacturing processes such as plastic injection molding, die casting and tire manufacturing are still important.

"3D printing is just going to be one more tool in the toolbox," Walker said.

Ryan Hahnlen, senior engineer of strategic research operations at Honda R&D Americas Inc., said cost also plays a role in this. Traditional manufacturing is more expensive if you're only making one part, but that cost comes down once you're making thousands or hundreds of thousands.

With additive manufacturing, the cost is usually consistent whether you're making one or 10,000 parts, he said. The value of additive manufacturing lies within areas of part performance, weight savings, cost savings, augmenting parts by designing in complexity only when necessary, similar material joining and tooling.

"That's where the value of (additive manufacturing) is," Hahnlen said. "It's in leveraging each process' unique capabilities."