Selecting the Best Equipment Presses with up to 100 tons of clamping force, which mold small parts, constitute the second largest group of presses used by molders in the United States. The majority of molders operate with presses in the 100-ton to 350-ton range. Presses in the 350-ton to 750-ton range represent the third largest group. Most injection molders enter the business with small to midsized molding presses.

To facilitate this, recent infrastructure investments have included an in-house powder quality control laboratory, a large heat treatment vacuum furnace, full multi-axis machining equipment, and equipment for automated finishing, hand finishing and final inspection. “The biggest investment, however, comes with the people who work at 3T,” stated Robinson. “Recruiting the right people with either experience in Additive Manufacturing or from related industry sectors has been critical to help us meet our customer expectations. As the years have passed our valued customers view 3T as a certified supplier and judge our quality and delivery performance as they would any other conventional supplier in their value chain. In addition, our technical support offering gives customers access to our design for AM courses, application engineering, NPI and R&D teams.”

3T is now strengthening its complete offering to clients, with a New Product Introduction (NPI) team that streamlines the whole component development process and, more recently, a significant expansion of its post-processing operations. “The setting up of 3T’s New Product Introduction team was important in that it signalled to our customers that we were serious about production metal AM. This capability set 3T apart at the time and continues to be a major benefit to the business.”

Quality Issues—What They're All About Finally, consider how your new plant will develop and assess product quality. During the past decade, quality issues as a part of good business operations have become a top concern for custom and captive molders. The OEM-custom molder relationship has always been one of interdependence, but until recently, custom molders had free rein when it came to matters of production.

Warehousing: A Hidden Requirement You will need space for storage of molds not in use, bags and gaylords of material, the finished-goods inventory customers most likely will request be held, and other equipment. Typically, molders use an average of 10 percent of their total floor space for warehousing. This will vary depending on the size of your molded parts, how many different materials must be kept on hand, and the size of the molds to be stored.

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Despite this early entry into metal AM, it wasn’t until 2015 that 3T began making a profit from the technology. “This was a major milestone because it showed that the industry genuinely had the future potential that we had believed in up to that point,” Halliday recalls. “Now, twelve years after starting with metal Additive Manufacturing, the metals side of the technology generates roughly 75% of the company’s total sales.”

Plant Layout Assuming you have the capital to support a startup, or have a budget from corporate headquarters, you start physical construction with the plant. Whether you build or buy, the layout of your plant is a crucial consideration if you're going to have an efficient, profitable operation. Allow approximately 1000 sq ft of space for each molding press; this accounts for offices, molding/production, secondary operations, quality control, storage of materials, and a mold maintenance and repair area.

If you were starting a new facility, it would be unlikely you'd pay this list price for any of this equipment. If you are molding a highly sophisticated product mix, these prices might be low. They also don't represent the prices of the most basic imported molding machine, either. But these prices at least offer a glimpse at what a good starting point might be.

For example, disposable medical components such as injection syringes are manufactured and used in the millions daily. However, the return from each one of these devices is in the tenths of a cent. Quality and manufacturing requirements are extremely stringent, and the parts generally are made from clear or clear-tinted material, which compounds the difficulty of molding. In order to make a profit, molders who choose this type of high-volume medical work must find ways to keep manufacturing costs at a minimum and efficiency high.

Halliday told Metal AM, “We are working on all three options, and expect the future of the company to develop in these directions. The centre of service, R&D, product development and production of 3T will remain in the UK for many years to come. However, if the company is to benefit from the knowledge built up over the last twenty years in AM, we need to multiply the use of that knowledge by supporting our customers through the AM journey to create their own stable production facilities either run by the customer or 3T”.

If material handling will be done manually, that is, by using forklifts to convey gaylords, or 1000-lb containers of resin, to presses, then adequate space must be allowed to accommodate the forklifts. If pneumatic conveying systems are to be used, then you might consider an enclosed material-storage aisle between the rows of presses, which keeps bags and gaylords of material out of sight yet handy to the presses.

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Much of Robinson’s effort has so far been focused on putting the business on a footing to efficiently manage the introduction and development of new products and meet customer demands in terms of quality and delivery. Commenting on the most significant improvements that have been introduced, and how the ‘customer experience’ has changed in recent years, Robinson stated, “Our whole customer experience is changing as their requirements evolve. Today, the AM build process is only part of the story, so implementing the full process supply chain is critical to give our customer turnkey ready-to-use parts.”

After so many years in the business, Halliday is quickly able to distinguish between enquiries that are viable and those that are not. Based on this knowledge, he has some basic advice for designers who are unfamiliar with AM on how to approach both the technology and potential production partners. “Firstly, AM will not solve all your problems, it is simply another manufacturing tool in the toolbox, albeit an excellent one,” he explained. “Try and learn enough about the benefits and shortfalls of AM to be able to identify which of the components that you design can be genuinely enhanced from the use of AM. This will help you select the right parts for AM, which can then be designed for manufacture by AM, but taking into account the beneficial and necessary use of conventional technologies for finishing, including CNC machining in particular.”

Machinery manufacturers say that molders use a variety of criteria when looking at a cost-justification evaluation. Some base their decision purely on the lowest price, without taking into consideration the "cost" of the machine. Price is what you pay for the machine now. Cost is what you will pay for the machine long-term, including such things as energy use and maintenance.

As far as molders and quality are concerned, size doesn't necessarily mean that a company is better. A large company or plant can be run poorly and have low productivity with below-average profits or ROI. A small plant can be well run and have high productivity and good profits. It's generally known, however, that all molders, whether they have $100 million or $1 million in production or sales, fight the same battles—only the scale is different. The bigger the company, the bigger the problems.

Some molders elect to use storage silos for resin; these molders usually specialize in one or two closely related markets and mold large parts from one or two materials or millions of parts from the same material. Resin from a silo can be pneumatically pumped to a machine, so little or no shelf space is required for its storage. Other molders, because of the nature of their businesses, opt to store raw materials on the shelf, a procedure that has been known to lead to overcrowding.

Injection molding auxiliary equipmentThe central material drying/handling system, including five insulated drying hoppers, dehumidifying dryer, pumps, filters, and conveying system would cost about $115,000. Beyond that, at right are typical prices for other auxiliary equipment.

Halliday added, “The development and protection of 3T UK is therefore the priority, however we have already benefitted 3T UK by helping non-competitor customers to develop their own in-house facilities. In addition to training and know how sharing, we are setting up a 3T site in Japan and will do the same in the USA. A global reach has many advantages, increasing opportunities, balancing risk and helping to balance the workload of each individual ‘hub’ by sharing production demand where viable. These three tenets of the 3T strategy have been a vision for over a decade, so it is uplifting to see the strategy starting to become a reality.”

In the case of Launcher and 3T, success can in part be attributed to the dynamic relationship between team members at both companies. Robinson explained, “We have an application engineer who is a rocket engine fanatic and could relate directly to the customer’s requirements and therefore led us to an innovative AM solution. This proactive relationship between our application engineer and the Launcher team was one of the factors to the success of the project.”

3T has ambitious plans for the future that centre on a continuing expansion in internal capacity, whilst supporting key customers with complete AM installations on their own sites and pushing for an international expansion of the 3T business.

“The space sector is one of the most fascinating industries to work with. The natural performance benefits with Additive Manufacturing through weight loss, thermal efficiencies, etc, are well-documented but the industry is forwardly thinking about the next ten years so. Therefore, taking cost out of the product without compromising quality is a critical expectation,” stated Robinson.

Halliday suggested that the sale of Morris Technologies to GE was a big surprise, serving to highlight that metal AM was entering a dynamic new era. However, he added, “it has not surprised me that the development of metal Additive Manufacturing has followed the same course as all other new technology introductions and followed the same rules and trends.”

3T and US-based rocket start-up Launcher have developed a close and successful working relationship in recent years, thanks in part to 3T’s capabilities in copper AM. Commenting on how this relationship was formed, Robinson stated, “When our collaboration started, the Launcher team was already using Additive Manufacturing to build its thrust chamber (Figs. 6-8), and their first test firing was with an Inconel version that they sourced in the United States. They approached 3T when they heard we could build in copper and the relationship grew from there. Launcher appreciated the collaborative ethos that both companies are based on.”

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“Various GE purchases then rocked the industry,” Halliday recalled, “starting with the pivotal acquisition of Morris Technologies and its sister company Rapid Quality Manufacturing (RQM) in 2012. This was later followed by the purchase of Avio Aerospaziale in 2013, Arcam and Concept Laser in 2016.”

In 2008, the company made the strategic move to start manufacturing dental copings, gaining ISO 13485 certification as a direct result. “Although the dental market wasn’t ready for AM until at least 2012, the ISO13485 systems made it a lot easier for us to gain AS9100 certification and hence opened the door to the aerospace world,” explained Halliday.

You must also determine what services you will offer, and what equipment will be needed to supply such capabilities. For example, even if you decide not to have a moldmaking facility in-house, you will need a certain amount of equipment for mold maintenance and repair. Will you do any type of secondary operations? If so, what type of equipment will that require? See the box above for a list of equipment in a 15-machine shop. Equipment costs are shown below.

As an employer, you will also quickly discover what many molders know already: In 2001, finding and keeping reliable production employees is very difficult. The competitive job market is a significant challenge for many molders. One way to combat this problem is to rely more on robotics and automation to perform the tasks that might otherwise be done manually. Robots can be used to pull parts from the mold, remove sprues, and do some assembly work. Most robot systems mount on top of the press and by themselves may not affect plant layout. But you may elect to use conveyors or other parts handling equipment press-side in conjunction with robots. Make sure to allow enough space to accommodate such equipment.

The larger the press, the more it costs, so the size of the majority of parts that will be molded is an important consideration. In a custom operation try to give yourself some flexibility on either end of the spectrum to also mold somewhat smaller or larger parts. This is an area where your business plan and marketing strategy, which determine the direction of your business, will also help you decide on the size and amount of equipment you'll need.

In 2019 3T Additive Manufacturing Ltd, formerly known as 3T RPD, celebrates twenty years of additively manufactured part production. Throughout this period, the business’s growth has closely tracked the evolution of the AM industry as a whole, moving from the rapid prototyping of plastic products through to end-use part production, the introduction of metal AM and, more recently, a ramping up of production capacity to meet demand for the series production of components.

When the demand for world-class molding facilities is added to state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities, the bar for entry into the custom injection molding business rises considerably. Instead of being able to enter the molding business on a shoestring, as many did 30 years ago, a large financial investment is now required. This generally requires the cooperation of a bank, an equipment leasing or lending institution, and financial backing from private investors to pull together the funds needed to succeed. Likewise, the barriers to entry for a captive operation to provide a good return on investment are high. It's not enough to buy molding machines and auxiliaries and leave them in place without improvements for the long haul. Captive operations also must not only make an initial investment, but also be prepared to stay technologically attuned.

IMM made some big assumptions and got ballpark figures from a few manufacturers who were willing to share their cost data. The tables below list some basic prices for injection molding machines and auxiliary equipment. For the purposes of this list, we assumed this 15-press facility would orient the machines in two side-by-side rows on 15-ft centers. We also decided that material handling would be central, designed to accommodate five different resins, each used in equal amounts, each with an average drying time of 3 hours. Hypothetical average cycle time would be 60 seconds at maximum shot capacity for all machines, which would consume 562 lb/hr of resin. Material would be pulled from gaylords, dried centrally, and delivered to each machine via machine-mounted vacuum receivers.

Nigel Robinson, who has served until recently as Director of Operations at 3T, will shortly succeed Halliday as CEO. Robinson has seen a rapid expansion in the market for metal AM components in the five years that he has been with the firm, telling Metal AM magazine: “The market has evolved dramatically in the years I have been at 3T. In 2014 the majority of our customers were either going through validation of AM as a true solution to their production needs or they just knew they needed to get into it without knowing where to start. The 3T team understands this and our passion is to take our customers through this journey no matter if they are an early adopter or looking for a serial production partner.”

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Nigel RobinsonOperations Director3T Additive Manufacturing LtdFulton CourtWofford WayGreenham Business ParkNewbury, RG19 6HDUK

Commenting on the transformation of the AM industry over the last twenty years, Halliday stated, “It is always interesting to look back and reflect on the pivotal change points that you have lived and worked through. Some of these points have been technical step changes, others have been commercial in nature or centred around the wider perception of AM.”

The use of a CuCrZr alloy in the Launcher application was attractive because of its high-efficiency cooling, leading to a longer chamber life and reduced costs compared to conventional production. The copper part was also proven to be twenty times more conductive than the comparable Inconel part, resulting in a coolant temperature of 280°C compared to 153°C for Inconel.

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In addition, entering custom injection molding with two or three presses and minimal capabilities means entering a highly competitive market already crowded at the low end with several thousand molders. Because many of these molders, with sales less than $1 million annually, offer little in the way of secondary services, they compete on the basis of price. This results in thin margins and a low survival rate.

Generally, space for secondary operations is designed in one of two ways—either as a separate area or room designated for such activities, or beside the press. The choice depends on the types of secondary operations to be performed and the space available. Some molders prefer to do secondary operations alongside the press after each cycle in order to minimize handling and maximize operator time. This can also increase efficiency in that parts don't have to be boxed, moved, unpacked for the secondary operation, and then repacked. Less handling is also easier on the parts and results in lower scrap rates—another important consideration. This requires that all operations be considered together and set up in cells, usually dedicated to a single product or assembly, sometimes with multiple parts.

“The most recent milestone relates to the scaling up of our metal post-processing capabilities. Completing this process chain enables us to give a complete and highly competent service to our customers, from design to delivery. Coupled with a large Additive Manufacturing capacity, the inclusion of in-house finishing, high-end 5-axis CNC and vacuum heat treatment sets us apart as one of the most capable full process chain AM manufacturers globally.”

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Max Haot, Founder and CEO of Launcher, told Metal AM magazine, “As part of our pursuit to build the highest performance additively manufactured liquid rocket engines, we were always hoping that one day we would be able to manufacture our chamber in copper alloy rather than Inconel but had not come across a service provider with this capability. Copper alloy is widely accepted as the highest performance material for cooling liquid rocket engines – Inconel is a compromise. When we heard that 3T was able to do this, we immediately partnered with them and went from quote to successful test fire in less than eight weeks. We achieved the highest performance oxidiser fuel mix ratio for kerosene and liquid oxygen (2.62) for a 45-second duration fire on the first test campaign with the AM engine from 3T.” (Fig. 9).

“Consider opportunities to combine parts and improve system performance through the use of AM – look more broadly than your own components on a system level if possible. Finally, be passionate about your design and the potential for using AM, but don’t expect it to do everything, and always include other manufacturing processes in your thinking.”

You should also consider whether or not cleanroom molding will be needed; if material handling will be done manually or via automatic pneumatic conveying systems (or a combination); where storage areas for materials will be; and whether the layout for manufacturing will promote production efficiency and minimize part handling in molding, assembly, and any other secondary operations.

While most molders accommodate the requirements of their customers, some question the necessity of all the quality bells and whistles like SPC, SQC, ISO 9000, and Six Sigma (a term coined by Motorola that refers to a quality level of three defective parts per million), given the variables of the molding process.

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Find a Niche and a Focus Most custom molders in business today have found a niche. Through experience, the molder became good at molding a particular type of part or at molding a particular kind of material, or became astute in working in a specific segment of the marketplace. In other words, he acquired an expertise and stuck with it. A captive molder inherits a market or a range of products, but must develop the same expertise and focus that a custom molder does.

Today it's increasingly apparent that if you're starting a plant or a business, you are either given or must find a niche—a specific market or product line—and focus on molding for that market or customer. Will you mold large parts? Small parts? Do you want to be a molder of low-volume, high-dollar parts? Or high-volume, low-dollar parts? Most people would answer that they want to be a molder of high-volume, high-dollar parts. If only it worked that way.

“Having started with metal Additive Manufacturing in 2007, we quickly established ourselves as one of the prime movers in the industry. The marketplace was not ready for metal AM parts at that time, so 3T had to put a lot of work into educating customers and developing the market,” stated Halliday.

Commenting on the speed of industry expansion, Robinson stated, “We are already seeing many positive results from our investments in NPI and post-processing. However, when you implement a new process sometimes you have no idea of how fast the market will react. As an example, when we implemented our first 5-axis machining centre I told our new machining team to expect a slow ramp up in the first few months. How wrong I was! Within the first week the machine was fully booked and I was pulling a business case for a second one. This is just one of many examples of managing a growing business in a growing sector.”

As someone who has been involved in Additive Manufacturing for more than two decades, Halliday has keenly observed the changing nature of the industry. Comparing his early expectations with the reality of the industry’s growth, he stated, “The most consistent factor has been that the rate of uptake has taken two to three times longer than I had expected – or let’s say hoped for. What is obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to all. The process of integrating a new technology is cumbersome and slow. It is a people-centric challenge interwoven with the vagaries of technical developments, perceptions and the business world in general. I now know that a major project can take two to three times longer than I expect, but it still surprises me when it does! That said, most of the strategic development models that I envisaged in 2007 were correct, but generally the timescales were too optimistic.”

The Molding Machine: Cost Justification More than just a purchase, an injection molding machine is an investment. As with any investment, you want to know what your return will be. What value will the machine contribute to your overall operation? Where will your break-even point be? Will the machine pay for itself in a year? Two years?

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“Of course, my perceived AM uptake model had some surprising exceptions that seemed to break the rules, but perhaps this simply demonstrated that sometimes, if you don’t know there are rules, you just do what you want to,” he continued. “One customer didn’t care about how we made the part at all, they simply wanted it when they needed it and to the right quality. Their uptake cycle was in effect a matter of weeks, not the usual years that we commonly encounter. The biggest obstacle was the time needed to gain PPAP [Production Part Approval Process] certification for the parts, then straight into production and onto a road-going vehicle.”

Two decades ago, a $30 million custom molding company was considered a top business. Today, as a result of mergers, acquisitions, and growth that has outpaced the national average, a company that size is considered small. So although an individual can set up a small injection molding operation for less than $1 million, unless the company has a special capability to offer or establishes a sound financial relationship with one or two customers, chances for success are slight.

3T is today a leading European commercial AM parts producer and serves an international portfolio of clients in industries including aerospace, automotive, motorsport, oil & gas and general engineering. It is also one of several EOS ‘e-manufacturing partners’ and benefits from a close relationship with the German machine builder, operating twenty-four EOS AM machines, including twelve M 290s and four M 280s (Fig. 2). The business is today within the portfolio of Dr Hans J Langer companies.

Commenting on how other end-users could learn from Launcher’s success to date, Robinson stated, “The Launcher team already had a very good understanding of the benefits and limitations of the use of Additive Manufacturing. However, being involved at the design stage was critical to get the most out of the opportunity of the concept. Our advice to all our customers is where possible to get 3T’s application engineers involved at the design stage so we can give advice on maximising the optimisation for DfAM.”

Other investment factors include the performance history for the machine under consideration, shot-to-shot repeatability, and whether the machine is geared toward high-volume, high-speed applications or low-volume, slow-cycle requirements. Ultimately, at the end of the day, what is its yield? Determining your ROI is application dependent. Some things can be quantified up front, but others can't until the mold is in the press and parts are running.

In recent years central material handling systems have grown in popularity. Such systems locate resin, dryers, hoppers, and blenders in one place, often in a basement below the presses, or on a mezzanine above the presses. Vacuum pumps and small pneumatic loaders at each machine move resin from the centrally located hoppers to the press via a network of tubing. Such a setup keeps bulky gaylords and dryers out of the way, allows machines to be spaced closer together on the floor, and makes material handling simpler as all resin can be managed from one location. A central system is more expensive to buy and install, but is usually more efficient in the long run.

As with most any major capital purchase, the price you pay for a particular unit depends on a lot of variables. In injection molding the variables are too numerous to list here, but generally, whatever you buy will vary by application. Much depends on what kind of material you'll mold, how much you'll use, and how large the parts are. But let's say, just for grins, that you do want to start up your own molding shop, based on the list above. And let's say you make some broad generalizations about how material will be handled, how much material you'll use, how long your cycles will be, and other considerations. About how much would the primary equipment cost for such a startup facility?

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The following is an edited excerpt from The Business of Injection Molding, by Clare Goldsberry. The book is the first title in the IMM Book Club Injection Molding Management Series, published by IMM. While much of the focus in the book is on a custom injection molding operation, many of the points about plant layout, machinery and equipment required, and staffing apply to captive molding operations as well.

The free to access Metal Additive Manufacturing magazine archive offers unparalleled insight into the world of metal Additive Manufacturing from a commercial and technological perspective through:

As the industry moved towards the series production of end-use components for critical applications, quality systems were urgently needed to instil user confidence in the technology. “The introduction of vision systems was part of a realisation that quality systems had to match those of conventional manufacturing processes if metal AM was to become a true manufacturing/production technology.” This, stated Halliday, was combined with the introduction of user-friendly software solutions for build set-up and build simulation that have led to a ‘democratisation of AM’. “This final point is as significant in the development of our industry as the reduction in build costs, as it brings down the technical barriers to entry for part manufacture.”

Some molders prefer lower-volume parts molded for high-dollar products, which tend to offer better profit margins. For example, the box that houses the instrumentation monitoring an IV drip must meet tough cosmetic standards, and it's only produced in quantities of 100,000 a year. Others prefer to mold component parts such as gears that remain out of sight, which means that although fit and function still are critical, cosmetic requirements are less stringent.

This year also marks the end of Ian Halliday’s tenure at the helm of the business. Having taken over as CEO in 2005 from the company’s founder, Tim Plunkett, Halliday has guided the company through a long period of growth that has seen fundamental changes in all areas of the industry, from technical capabilities to materials and end-user markets.

If you require some level of cleanroom molding—often required by medical and electronics parts—then you must decide how you will achieve it. The various types of cleanrooms include Class 100, Class 1000, Class 10,000 and Class 100,000. Each level has its own criteria and must meet certain requirements as established by FDA guidelines. Class 100 is the most stringent and Class 100,000 is simply a "clean environment," and therefore the easiest to achieve.

“On the technical side, the introduction of the ytterbium fibre laser by EOS was a milestone that enabled the controlled direct melting of a wide range of metallic alloys, whilst The Economist’s 2011 article ‘Print me a Stradivarius’ coincided with a tipping point in the awareness of Additive Manufacturing. Together these were undoubtedly catalysts for the rapid growth of the technology.”

The company recognises that key to continued success are dedicated and skilled employees and, in the context of an environment where there is an AM skills shortage and lively business for the recruitment industry, 3T works hard to retain key staff as well as to plan for future workforce expansion. “We will only retain staff if we make their job interesting, fun and give them a secure and positive future,” Robinson noted. “So that is central to our philosophy as a business. The 3T team wants our company to be the best place to work in our industry. Although direct AM skills are indeed rare, taking on top people and training them is a good alternative, despite taking one to two years before some of their skills are sufficiently robust. That of course does make our staff more of a target, and hence we go back to the above statement about how to increase our chances of retaining key people.”

Copper is a material that is now becoming increasingly talked about in relation to AM. Commenting on the specific challenges of processing this material, Robinson stated, “Whilst 3T’s copper developments go back to 2014, it has taken a number of years to perfect the process. Unsurprisingly, the secret is not just in the build process but the complete production chain, including heat treatment and post-processing. Since launching copper, we have seen various industries become interested in the material. Particular interest is coming from customers for electrical and cooling applications, where thermal efficiencies are improved through the combination of copper and AM’s design capabilities.”

How a facility is set up and attendant decisions depend on the type of markets you are serving, the type of parts you need to mold, and what your customers (internal or external) dictate you have. Right at the start, also consider future expansion, either of the plant itself or of production floor space. While a 10,000-sq-ft facility might seem enormous when it's empty, it can become crowded when 10 presses and auxiliary equipment are installed. A rule of thumb is to lease or purchase a building twice the size you figure you'll need to start.

Another factor to consider when investing in a molding press is the type of mold(s) it will be running. Will they be large, multicavity, hot runner molds that require larger-tonnage equipment, or single-cavity, conventional molds that require smaller-tonnage machines? Controls and the speed of system response must be also considered. Do you need a press that provides versatility, or are you investing in a press that will just run one job continuously?

Large OEMs—specifically, the automotive and computer industries—adopted the philosophy of manufacturing with quality as they began seeking greater market share for their products. They recognized, however, that the quality of their products could be no better than the quality of the products' component parts. For this reason, much of the responsibility for improving quality has been laid directly at the feet of custom injection molders who supply the vast number of components.

Halliday also believes that the development of an AM-specific powder supply chain has been crucial for industry growth, citing the arrival of LPW in the metal powder marketplace. “This created price and quality competition that drove down powder prices, which was a critical enabler to growth,” he stated.

“Hiring key skilled AM experts enabled a ‘quick start’ for us, but the hard work is in building up a team, the quality systems and the infrastructure on minimal investment,” he continued. “We secured aerospace OEM series production contracts early on, and this enabled us to grow whilst driving forward quality system development.”

Halliday’s experience of Additive Manufacturing, however, extends beyond his career at 3T to the early 1990s where, as Chief Engineer at the Rover Group, he was instrumental in setting up an internal rapid prototyping and rapid tooling facility. It was under his guidance that Rover Group first investigated Stereolithography (SLA) in 1989, resulting, he explained, in a very fragile and very expensive part from a service bureau that, inevitability, no longer exists. The recognition of what the technology could do led to the establishment in 1991 of an in-house rapid prototyping operation that was very much ahead of its time. To give a sense of the scale of this early operation, in 1998 the Rover Group produced 2,200 parts by Stereolithography, 3,200 parts by Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and 9,500 polyurethane parts from silicon moulds.

Several factors must be considered to determine the return on investment (ROI) for a press. One of the biggest factors driving machinery investment is the amount of energy used. Estimates put energy costs at about 5 to 7 percent of a molder's total operating budget. Considering the amount of energy a typical 15-press plant can consume, energy has become an enormous cost issue. A-c variable-speed pumps and motors offered on most newer equipment, and as a retrofit for older equipment, can save energy by using it only when called upon during the machine's cycle.

“In addition to simply taking on qualified engineers and other disciplines, we have a strong and healthy apprenticeship programme, which will help to fulfil our skills requirements in the medium and long term.”

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Finally, it's usually not enough to just mold parts anymore, package them in a box, and send them to the customer, traditionally called "shoot and ship." Many manufacturers go to molders now looking for design and engineering services, tooling assistance, and postmold decoration and assembly expertise. Captive molders, as well, are more likely to have several secondary functions integrated with the molding of the basic parts.

3T hired Dr Mark Beard – now with Dutch AM machine producer Additive Industries – in 2012 to help establish a robust R&D team, “something that is strategically critical to any technical company, and something we are very proud of,” Halliday stated.

From NASA and SpaceX to a new generation of smaller companies looking to carve a niche in the expanding small satellite delivery market, the space industry has fully embraced metal Additive Manufacturing. 3T is supporting smaller companies with highly engineered rocket components that rely on its AM materials and production expertise.

While many molding companies have rushed to implement the latest and greatest with regard to quality standards, others balk at the idea of so much money spent without the assurance that a particular level of quality is actually needed. In some ways, too, these so-called levels have made the playing field more uneven and are knocking smaller molding shops out of competition.

3T made its first copper parts on a standard EOS M 290 in 2014, displaying the 3T heat exchanger at Formnext in 2015. This development served to demonstrate its capabilities in materials development and led the way to its current leading position in the AM rocket engine manufacturing market.

“We are delighted that our affiliated company AMCM is working with 3T to produce the required large-scale copper parts and we have both identified a number of sectors that would benefit from this size of application. A customised AM machine is on track to deliver 1000 mm Z-height parts within the next few months.”