Sustainability is a growing focus for companies around the globe. Like other manufacturers, Trumpf has implemented ambitious strategies to reduce carbon emissions as part of its sustainability initiatives. Another issue facing manufacturers recently has been the supply chain difficulties that have affected shipments and deliveries of food, medicine, and equipment. In manufacturing, frequent delays have been caused by supply chain issues creating a lack of available materials and parts.
The question is, how can manufacturers mitigate issues related to problems with carbon footprint, supply chains, and labor shortages? Additive manufacturing (AM) may be the answer; it has the potential to overcome many of these difficulties. 3D printing by laser metal fusion and laser metal deposition are ideal processes for manufacturing near or at the point of end use. Not only does this shorten lead times, reducing potential supply chain problems, it also reduces carbon emissions. The significant lead time advantage also makes good financial sense.
Rising to the initial challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, AM showcased itself as a solution to supply chain problems by producing parts for ventilators, face shields, and face masks, especially when these items were in short supply.
Three years after the pandemic’s height, supply issues are still affecting many facets of life. The question becomes: How do we get goods and products to customers and end users? And how do we overcome supply chain issues, and decrease our carbon footprint?
One silver lining that appeared during the pandemic: Less carbon dioxide was released into the environment. When lockdowns occurred in many cities and urban areas, freeway driving and aviation travel slowed. Decreasing the amount of human transportation by conventional methods resulted in dramatic falls in global carbon emissions.
We can maintain these positive gains by using more fuel-efficient vehicles, as well as by changing the way we travel and transport goods. AM processes can help transform this vision into reality.
AM is a potential solution to all these problems. For aerospace, with so many parts on aircraft and space launch vehicles, the opportunities for new designs and parts made using AM are vast and change on an almost daily basis.
Since commercial aviation suffered a massive dip during the pandemic, AM processes helped to solve the problem of lead time in non-critical parts by allowing more prototyping and seeing where weight and cost savings could be made.
In medical “3D printing at the point of care,” it is possible to print a part at the location where a medical device will be used. With better dimensional tolerance, perfect fit, and excellent surface finish with minimal post-processing as advantages, there may no longer be a need to have a part manufactured overseas or even on the other side of the country, then shipped to the medical practitioner, who is the end user of such devices.
In one step, we can reduce lead time, transportation costs, pain to the individual, and carbon emissions—just by printing the part where it is actually needed. That’s real progress, with sustainable benefits.
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