Application Specific Designs. Engineering Grade Materials.
End of Arm Tooling Case Study
End-of-arm tooling plays an integral part in manufacturing processes that serve a multitude of industries around the world. The global market for end-of-arm tooling is more than seven billion dollars, and is expected to grow as automation becomes increasingly prevalent in production environments.
Recently, additive manufacturing has provided a means to produce end-of-arm tooling that is less expensive and lighter weight than current pieces. Additive manufacturing has also opened the doors to higher productivity by minimizing production downtime by delivering tooling on demand for the specific job.
This white paper details a case study from BDI Additive leveraging additive manufacturing to produce custom end-of-arm tooling. In this study, the engineering process to design end-of-arm tooling and the additive manufacturing operation is described, as well as benefits relating to the use of additive manufacturing for custom end-of-arm tooling.
3D printed end-of-arm tooling opportunities and challenges are detailed. Lastly, the ability to further integrate additive manufacturing in manufacturing environments is discussed.
Engineering Grade Polymers
Engineering Grade Plastics are stored in a climate controlled chamber before printing to control moisture.
Customization of Design
Custom parts and tooling are often costly and have extensive lead times to create the necessary jigs, fixtures, and other pieces of tooling to manufacture the final product.
Additive manufacturing allows us to skip the preliminary stages and directly fabricate the desired tooling design. 3D printed tooling is a win-win solution for both maintenance personal and procurement.
Additive manufacturing is also beneficial for the early design stages of new product or tooling pieces. Prototypes, both functional and not, can be quickly turned around to reduce the time during iterations.
BDI Additive has engineers that can help bring your custom designs to life.