3D打印行业透视@Formnext l 对话雷尼绍增材制造应用总监Marc Saunders先生
3D打印行业透视@Formnext的本期被采访对象是Renishaw(雷尼绍)增材制造应用总监Marc Saunders先生。
左: Marc Saunders，雷尼绍增材制造应用总监
右: Korinna Penndorf, 3D科学谷联合创始人
About Formnext
Q1. 贵公司Formnext展会上有哪些亮点？
A: 雷尼绍本届Formnext 的亮点是将生产效率与质量相结合的金属3D打印技术。生产效率与质量是使用金属3D打印技术制造零件的企业最为重视的，雷尼绍多激光器选区激光熔融设备能够以更快、更低成本实现零部件生产，并且提供具有稳定可重复的质量。
金属3D打印散热器，图片来源：雷尼绍
对于多激光3D打印技术来说，粉末床的每个区域能够产生相同的质量是非常重要的，多激光器3D打印设备应能够使用户通过一致的参数获得质量一致的产品，并且在进行批量生产时仍然能够做到这一点，而这也是雷尼绍在今年展会中的聚焦点。
在今年展会中，我们虽然没有发布新设备，但是我们展示了去年所推出的3D打印设备的性能。对于去年推出的几款设备，我们进行了一年的测试，进行了参数开发工作，并进行了所制造的零件的疲劳性能测试。
视频：formnext上雷尼绍展台
Korinna Penndorf提问：在我们与制造业用户开展业务合作的过程中，客户最为关心的问题包括：是否能够通过3D打印制造出他们所需要求的产品质量的同时兼顾成本的考虑？
Marc Saunders回答： 现在，我们已证明雷尼绍的技术可以满足客户的这些需求。
About Business
Q2. 在您的公司，今年的3D打印业务与去年相比的业绩是怎样的？
A: 可以肯定的是，我们看到了强劲的增长，并感觉到制造业用户端对于增材制造技术需求所发生的变化。在用户初次购买金属3D打印设备时，目的是开展增材制造相关的实验，但是如今已经有很多用户完成了这一阶段的工作，开始进入到增材制造生产阶段。那些正在筹备生产的客户，有的会购买一台金属3D打印设备，有的则是购买更多，例如5台甚至10台。这种情况越来越多，这也是支撑我们业务增长的基础。
在早期应用3D打印技术的行业中，其中的大多数企业已经意识到3D打印技术的重要性。这里所指的“早期”行业是航空航天，目前许多将3D打印技术用于零部件生产的公司都在航空航天行业。但我们也看到医疗器械制造商在大量应用3D打印技术。同时，我们还看到石油、能源、汽车制造、消费电子领域对于3D打印技术的重视，特别是汽车与模具制造领域。同时我们还看到有新的用户进入到增材制造领域，开始开展3D打印实验阶段的工作。
金属3D打印散热器，图片来源：雷尼绍
增材制造领域的“新成员”开始意识到3D打印技术在提升产品性能方面存在的价值。这些制造领域的用户正在寻找加快产品设计迭代和产品生命周期的解决方案，这些企业对于3D打印技术的应用发展速度或许会超过航空航天、医疗等监管严格的行业。因此在未来几年，我们或将看到3D打印技术在这些新兴应用领域中得到迅速的发展。
雷尼绍在全球多地区设立了服务中心，为用户提供小批量生产服务，目前这些服务业务发展良好。我们看到一些两年前开始应用3D打印技术的客户已经转向生产应用阶段，这些客户正在建立自己的增材制造设施，从通过雷尼绍获得增材制造服务过渡到建立自己的增材制造能力。
雷尼绍为用户提供的3D打印服务实际上是一个与用户开展联合工程开发的过程，客户在应用3D打印技术的早期，可以借助雷尼绍的设施、技术以及经验，在大量投入增材制造技术之前，首先开发出3D打印成功案例，并学习增材制造技术，培养自己的增材制造人才，在用户决定投入自己的增材制造设施的时候，一切已经准备就绪。我们也发现在共同开发产品的过程中，也是我们相互“取经”共同发展的过程，这是一个充满探索精神的一个过程，与其说是雷尼绍在提供咨询服务，更恰切的说法是雷尼绍与用户共同开发的工程项目。
About Challenges
Q3. 当前贵公司3D打印相关的业务所面临的主要挑战是什么？
A: 降低每个部件的3D打印成本，保证质量稳定性是充满挑战的，这是雷尼绍一直以来的聚焦点以及推进的工作。如果3D打印零件质量参差不齐，那么在后续后处理和认证阶段将会花费更多成本。每个3D打印零件的成本与生产效率和质量一致性相关。目前金属3D打印技术已经在某些细分领域展开了应用，但随着成本控制和质量一致性进一步发展，金属增材制造技术将迎来更多的机会。
About the industry
Q4. 关于3D打印行业的发展，您怎么看待2018年的发展情况，您觉得站在行业发展的角度，今年主要的发展以及障碍有哪些？
A: 我们看到了金属增材制造的增长，我们看到了很多新的进入者，尤其在中国，出现了一些新的3D打印设备企业。这些企业中，有的已经很成熟，而有的还处在发展当中。
同时我们看到，在雷尼绍以及其他老牌企业的长期客户当中部分已经转向增材制造生产，他们已经从初期仅购买一两台3D打印设备, 发展到购买一系列的3D打印设备。这些客户需要我们提供支持的水平与过去不同了，他们对于产品性能、可靠性的要求也提升了，因此我们需要为客户提供更专业的服务。
限制行业发展的主要障碍是传统设计思维方式的制约作用。未来3D打印能够得到多大的发展，与多少用户在应用这个技术相关，与多少用户向以产品功能实现为导向的增材制造思维方式转变有关，与多少用户正在考虑3D打印能为其产品做些什么有关。客户需要思考如何设计出能够充分利用3D打印优势的产品，但是目前还没有足够的公司能够真正把握住这一点。
出于对变化所带来的风险的担心，有的应用领域的制造企业比较偏保守，很难去进行一些风险较高的，具有颠覆性的创新，这并不是制造业中的个别现象，制造企业需要更加全面的认识3D打印的价值，并了解如何降低风险。雷尼绍正在努力通过提供培训与指导，帮助用户降低风险，实现增材制造的产业化应用。
About the future of AM
Q5. 您个人或者您公司对与未来5年增材制造行业的发展看法如何？
A: 我认为我们身处在令人激动的时间节点上，3D打印技术正在从原型为主流的应用进入到增材制造生产型的应用，我们迎来了发展的契机。
5年后，我们将看到增材制造技术更多的扩展，不仅是在航空航天领域，还包括汽车等民用制造领域。我们将会看到3D打印零部件被安装在车辆中。在消费类电子产品、家用电器制造等对于产品迭代要求高的行业，或将成为应用3D打印技术的先锋和推动者。
希望未来5年，我们能够看到更多公司通过3D打印技术开发创新型的产品，不是仅仅将3D打印技术作为一种研发试制阶段代替开模具过程的一个捷径技术，而是将3D打印技术用于批量生产，用3D打印技术制造一些过去无法通过传统制造方式实现的产品，这些产品具有出色的性能，并最终推动整个行业的发展。
-- 英文采访 --
Q1: What’s your highlights here at Formnext?
A: Here we are really talking about combining productivity with quality, because these are the key things that companies are looking at that do parts with metal AM. So we try to combine the productivity of multiple lasers, that allow us to build parts faster and at a lower cost, but also with consistency. So it is really important that every area of the bed produces the same quality, that part after part come out with a very consistent performance. So that companies can achieve consistent products with the parameters and have the confidence to maintain that in series production. So those are really the focus points for us this year.
Q. Korinna Penndorf：Are you launching any new machines or new features based on that focus?
A. Marc Saunders： We are not launching any new machines this year. What we are really doing is demonstrating the performance of the machines we introduced last year. We introduced a few machines last year and we are now backing that up with a whole year’s worth of data on testing, on parameter development work, on fatigue performance. All the questions that manufacturers ask when they are putting parts into production. So you get past the glossy brochure and get down to the real conversation about “Can you make my product? Can you make that to the quality we require? And can you make that to a cost that we require?”. And now we have proof.
Q2: If you compare this year business performance as opposed the last year, how has it been?
A: We are surely seeing strong growth. We won’t comment on specific numbers, so I can’t give you numbers of machines or turnover, but absolutely we are seeing strong growth and we are seeing a change in the way companies are approaching now. Maybe a year or two ago they were looking at buying their first machine and doing experimentation. Many more companies are at a point right now where they have done that work and they are moving now to their first production implementation, so they are buying a cell of machine, five or ten machines sometimes. So we are seeing much more of that and that is underpinning the growth.
Plus we are also seeing new companies taking their first steps in AM as well. So the early adopters are scaling up and we are now sort of seeing the “early majority” starting to come into the market and realizing they need to get involved, too.
Q. Korinna Penndorf：Which kinds of industries ae those “majorities”?
A. Marc Saunders： Aerospace is at the front of the queue. They are the ones that have made the most progress and they have been working with the technology the longest, so consequently many of the companies moving to production now are in that sector. But we also see heavy use in medical devices which again has been using the technology for some time. But increasingly we are seeing interest from areas like oil & gas, energy generation, from automotive particularly in the tooling arena for automotive but also in areas like consumer electronics and so on. These are some of the newcomers that are starting to realize the product performance opportunities that additive can bring. They are all looking at short design and product life cycles so they might move faster than some of the more regulated sectors like aerospace. So it is going to be interesting to see how some of these sectors will become much more important in additive over the next few years.
Q. Korinna Penndorf：You have these service centres set up around the world that provide services up to small batch production. How has that part been developing?
A. Marc Saunders： That has been developing very well. We see now some of the early customers that have started on that journey two years ago moving to production. Their facilities are coming online now and they are moving from working on Renishaw premises to their working on their own premises and that has been a successful transition. We are also seeing more companies early on their journey to make use of that, because it gives them the chance to learn, to build a business case before they get to make the big commitment and put a facility, machinery and people all together. By the time they make that decision they have processes ready, employees that are trained and that really helps. So we find that it is not really a consulting process but much more of a joint engineering development. That is the spirit in which we do those projects.
Q3: What are the major challengesas Renishaw that you are currently facing?
A: I have already touched on that with the key things I mentioned, really bringing the cost per part down and quality is related to that. If you have variable quality you will spend more money on post-processing and certification. Cost per part really comes into productivity and consistency. So we are really pushing those things because that’s going to open up more opportunities for the technology. So far it has been so far quite niche in the sort of applications that made sense, but as we bring those costs down then more and more application areas open up and the business case gets stronger. That is really our mission to do that and I don’t believe we are alone with that in the industry but it is certainly our key focus right now.
Q4: How would you look at the year 2018 for the overall industry: what’s been the major developments and obstacles for the industry?
A: I think the major development is right now the growth we are seeing in metal additive and we see a lot of new entrances in this field particularly in China where there are manufacturers starting to provide machines. Some of those are quite mature, some of them are new, but they are developing. Also the established players like Renishaw and others are seeing their long-term customers moving towards production. They are moving from this buying one or two machines to buying cells of machines. So there’s a big change in the level of support that they need, the level of performance they expect , reliability – all those things really step up at that point. For the industry we have to raise our game and become much more professional in the way we serve and support those customers as they move into this sort of critical phase. I think that’s the big task.
Also one of the other key challenges the industry is facing more generally is design. One of the huge constraints on the future growth is how many applications, how many companies are opening their minds to what additive can do for their products and realize the potential disruption they can have in their market. So they need to get busy and get designing products that are capable of taking advantage of the capabilities of additive. Not enough companies really grasp that yet. Some of them are, but that going to be the constraint on the industry as a whole is getting that skill set and opening up the imagination maybe of designers to whatthey do with technology.
Q. Korinna Penndorf：So we are talking about a shift of paradigm, shift of thinking for designers and engineers?
A. Marc Saunders： It absolutely is and of course in some sectors they are traditionally quite conservative and making some of those riskier changes in design is difficult for some firms culturally to adopt. That’s a challenge for the manufacturing industry generally and it’s use of AM. We are trying to help that by providing training and guidance but ultimately that will have to come from leadership in the manufacturing industry saying “We are going to do this! We are going to make it OK to take a risk and try taking a big step forward.”
Q5: How do you think things will develop over the next 5 year
A: I think we are in anamazing time. This is really a very exciting time to be involved in additive because we are at this sort of inflection point now as we move from people playing with it to people really using it in production.
In 5 years’ time we are going to see that much more spread. Not just in aerospace but other sectors, too, including automotive I believe. I think we are going to see automotive (AM produced) parts on vehicles. In that kind of time frame we will get there.
But we will also see other sectors as I mentioned, consumer electronics, household appliances, more general industrial. Their relative agility in terms of their product life cycle may allow them to become pioneers and drivers in this technology, kind of the same way they have been in machining in recent years. That is, what I think, one to watch out for. We will have to see which of those will come true, but whatever happens we are in for some pretty exciting growth, I think.
Hopefully we will get a lot more examples of companies doing innovative things with the technology. Not just using it as an alternative, but using it to make products that really haven’t been imagined at the moment but will deliver fantastic performance for the customers and ultimately that’s what creates the value that drives this whole sector. So, really interesting time ahead.
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