Using a rapid-prototyping system as a 3D fax to verify and modify product designs among a company's far-flung design and production units might sound dubious, but on closer look it proves to be a solution that is so simple and cost-effective, you wonder why no one ever thought of it before.
adidas-Salomon is implementing an RP system by Objet Geometries to do just that, enabling its U.S. and European design teams and its Asian contract factories to discuss and modify product designs using identical 3D models, simultaneously.
Rapid prototyping is a technology that automatically creates physical, 3D models from STL files. The models are used by design, production, and mechanical engineers so that they can evaluate products early in the design stage. "There is no substitute for holding a model in your hands as a way to verify the design, evaluate the fit, and test the functionality," say many engineers.
RP decreases time to market in many industries, and can decrease the cost of error substantially. Using such models enables designers to detect and make changes earlier in the process, providing significant savings for companies. According to Terry Wohler's Rapid Prototyping: Tooling and Manufacturing State of the Industry Report (2003), the cost of an engineering change order (ECO) increases by roughly one order of magnitude as the design progresses from one significant development phase to the next. An ECO that costs $100 at the detail design phase might cost $1,000 at the prototype and testing phase. After the product is in production, an ECO might cost as much as $100,000; as can be imagined, the cost of a change once the product is launched can escalate to $1 million.
RP systems, as opposed to older technologies like CNC, free designers, enabling them to design anything they want; all they have to consider are final production constraints.
But equally important for e-manufacturing is the affordability of RP systems like Objet, which enables companies to place such systems in several corporate sites, worldwide, and enables users to print 3D models as many times as they need to.
adidas-Salomon: Sharing 3D Data Reduces Product Development Dramatically
For adidas-Salomon, among the top athletic footwear manufacturers worldwide, product enhancement and new product rollouts are crucial. Technology is given a priority, and the company's vision for more than four years has been to implement a complete digital process that will enable it to create and share three-dimensional data back and forth from corporate headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany and in the Portland, OR facility, to all its corporate units and contract factories in Asia.
adidas-Salomon chose Objet's RP system, enabling designers to send their files to the company's Asian production team, which builds the exact replica of the part, so that both designers and production team can discuss modifications based on the real part, early in the design stages. It enables them to find possible problems that may occur in the late production cycle.
"It's like a 3D fax," says adidas-Salomon AG's vice president-product creation technologies Gary Pitman. "Our research told us that having a higher-quality RP model would allow us to influence more than just the design verification phase; we felt we could save significant time and money by using the RP models as the master when vacuum-casting parts for development review and eventually, for production tooling."
Easy To Use, Accurate Results
Objet's RP system is an easy-to-use, affordable machine that enables companies to create accurate, detailed three-dimensional models with any geometry required. It is compact, roughly the size of a photocopier, and environmentally friendly -- low noise level, no fumes, no contact with toxic materials. Users have full control of the process, reducing timeframes and saving resources.
Objet applies its own second generation PolyJet™ technology in its Eden line of products, which uses a raster process to produce photopolymer models. This enables the machine to build several models at once in only slightly more time than it would take to build one model (if they fit the width/height).
The printing block or bridge, comprising 8 separate and indvidual printing or "jetting" heads, slides back and forth along the X-axis, much like a line printer, depositing single, thin (16-micron) layers of photopolymer materials onto the build tray according to a predetermined configuration. Immediately after depositing, UV bulbs alongside the jetting bridge emit ultraviolet light, which cures each layer immediately, eliminating any post-modeling curing. Models are ready to be held as soon as they are built.
Materials are delivered to the jetting head via 2 kg sealed cartridges of both model and support material. The user has no contact with liquid photopolymer during the build process. Two different types of photopolymer materials are used for building: one material is used predominantly for the actual model, while a second, gel-like photopolymer material is used for support. The construction of the support structure is preprogrammed to cope with complicated geometries, such as cavities, overhangs and undercuts, delicate features, and thin-walled sections. This soft support material is only slightly linked with the model material. When this support material is wet and pressure is exerted onto this structure (by either brush or water jet), it loosens and separates from the model material. This occurs in small enough sections so that support material can be removed from gaps or holes of a few hundred microns.
"Installing a machine for both headquarters has put us at a higher level. Objet's helped change the way we work," Pitman states. Objet systems installed in Asian supplier locations give adidas-Salomon the ability to collaborate with each factory in Asia on specific product needs. It reduces time for development, commercialization, and production, enables them to be closer to the market, and reduces the need to travel, since models can be built from any of adidas-Salomon's design and factory facilities.
