Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (Düsseldorf, Germany;) announced the expansion of its Additive Manufacturing Services, designed primarily for automotive and industrial customers to provide support with 3D printable materials, from design through to final part manufacturing.
Henkel engineers are working with customers in the automotive and industrial sectors to optimize 3D printed parts. (Source: Henkel)
Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services leverages Henkel’s sizable existing infrastructure and internal capabilities at strategically located application centers and at its certified plant in Richmond, Missouri, which is already supplying millions of traditionally produced parts to a host of automotive and industrial customers.
These facilities meet and exceed exacting industrial standards including: OHSA 18001:2007, ISO/TS 16949:2006, EMS ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 9001:2015. Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services offers a wide range of 3D printing capabilities including stereolithography, digital light processing, and multijet fusion, in addition to dedicated post-processing and finishing services.
“Within Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services, we’re focused on providing additional support to our existing industrial customers, including OEM automotive manufacturers and their top suppliers,” says Simon Mawson, Senior Vice President and Head of 3D Printing. “They have very unique requirements, and we’re leveraging our vast material portfolio to help them build quality, repeatability and scalability into their additive manufacturing efforts. They want to produce end production parts, and our mission is to help them achieve that goal.”
“Knowledge of materials, and additive manufacturing workflows are critically important to the future success of 3D printing in a production environment,” says Chris Liddiard, Market Segment Head Automotive and Industrial Parts. “Equally important, and often overlooked is a knowledge of industrial customer requirement, APQP, exacting customer quality requirements, and seamless part ordering and delivery. Failure to control and manage all these factors can lead to a breakdown in customer supply chain. Henkel’s long history in producing and delivering traditionally manufactured parts as a Tier 1 to multiple industries, coupled with exciting material development in additive manufacturing is a powerful combination to lead the development of the production of reliable end use parts.”
Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services works primarily with applications where parts are intended for ongoing, serial production. In addition to selecting and optimizing the right material for each part, the team can provide input early in the product development lifecycle, helping customers optimize their designs for function, surface finish, and to meet geometric dimensioning and tolerancing requirements. Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services also assists with part validation and other quality initiatives, including dimensional analysis of finished pieces.
Henkel Additive Manufacturing Services is part of a growing solution that allows companies of all sizes and in every industry to leverage the power of additive manufacturing.