3D printing company partners with Renishaw for volume production

A spin out from a national research organisation, called RAM3, is setting out to provide a metal 3D printing service, spanning design, prototyping and ultimately full-scale production.

The New Zealand-based company is a leader for end-to-end metal additive manufacturing (AM) solutions for a range of global industry sectors, including aerospace, marine, food processing and more.

To establish its high-quality volume manufacturing capability, RAM3D purchased six Renishaw additive manufacturing systems, with the intention to invest in more machines in the future. 

RAM3D set out to meet the growing demand for metal 3D printing services in the Australasia region, and in 2014 the company approached Renishaw for advice and decided to purchase the company’s latest AM machine.

In a matter of just a few years RAM3D experienced a dramatic evolution in the market for metal 3D printing services. Overtime, the company had to contend with a seismic shift from low volume prototyping to the provision of a high-volume production service. While of course this is the best kind of problem to be faced with, after years of focused effort and investment, this shift presented challenges.

To respond to the increased customer demand, they had to ramp up manufacturing capacity while at the same time maintaining the process’s perfect consistency in part quality – irrespective of part complexity, metal material and target volume.

Renishaw’s additive solution

Recognising the advantages of Renishaw’s AM systems, their ease-of-use, quality of their laser beams and their repeatability, RAM3D elected to make Renishaw their partner of choice. The machine purchased at the time was equipped with an optical system delivering 250W of laser power for a beam diameter of just 70µm. Its human-machine interface was highly graphical and intuitive in nature. Driven by forecast customer demand, the company followed a phased introduction of additional AM machines to meet growing production capacity requirements.

CEO and co-founder of RAM3D, Warwick Downing said: “The machine purchased from Renishaw at the time, was the only one that offered us the flexibility, openness and easy set-up that we were looking for.  We had lots of ideas of our own on optimising our manufacturing process, and this machine gave us the freedom that we needed to implement them.  If we wanted to change a parameter, to adjust it to more closely suit a particular part, then we could.”

Across its Renishaw AM machines the company prints metal parts in a complete range of high-quality metal powders, including stainless steel 15-5ph, stainless steel 316, inconel 718 and titanium 64, and at the time of writing is also looking to add Maraging tool steel to its product portfolio.

The result

In a little over five years since purchasing their first Renishaw AM machine, RAM3D has grown its metal 3D printing business from mainly a prototyping service, to being able to offer a fully-fledged volume production service as well. They are also able to serve to customers throughout the world as well as its Australasian home territory.

Mr Downing added: “To be a commercial success in this field, you need to make the right choice of AM machine, make the manufacturing capacity available, and develop the right manufacturing process.” 

Since partnering with Renishaw, RAM3D has seen customer part volumes increase exponentially and have been running the machines for 24 hours a day for at least 6 days a week. While demand is very much sector and product specific, the company has seen production run volumes rise from 3,000 to 4,000 mark, up to 12,000 per year, and is expected to reach 20,000 over next few years.

At the time of writing, RAM3D’s operating plant in Tauranga, New Zealand, consists of seven metal 3D printing machines, six of which are Renishaw machines. RAM3D is committed to investing in more Renishaw AM machines in the future, including the next generation product offering, the RenAM 500 series, with a plan to have 9-10 operating machines by the turn of the year.

The company is also trialling Renishaw’s QuantAM software. A dedicated build preparation software that; optimises part support structures, aligns parts within the build volume and sets up the final 3D printing file.

By establishing a common platform for its growing additive manufacturing operations, RAM3D has been able to continuously boost efficiency year-on-year. A process material changeover on a machine for example, from one metal to another metal, can now take less than an hour. 

The company is ultimately assuring its volume production customers with guaranteed repeatability and complete consistency in product output. By partnering with Renishaw, RAM3D is helping customers to produce products that are superior in terms of function, part integration, performance, weight and cost effectiveness. 

Renishaw
www.renishaw.com