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academia, not to mention convincing the younger genera- tions that manufacturing jobs are worth aspiring to. Tackett’s UL colleague, Chris Krampitz, director of strat- egy and innovation for digital manufacturing technolo- gies (Chicago, IL), agrees that assembling a workforce is a big challenge—and puts numbers to the problem: “When we look at the workforce that’s required for additive, we’re facing a large shortage. By 2025, we’ll see a worker shortage of 2 million across manufacturing (in the United States), and it’s even more difficult with additive because of specialization.”
“Skillsets aside, there’s no pool of people to pull from,” he said. “When CNC machining came around, at least you had a pool of experienced machinists to pull from.”
Optimization on the Shop Floor Also challenging is automating production to get the
most out of a shop’s investment in machinery, and inte- grating metal AM into production work. Andy Snow, senior vice president of development for
EOS North America (Novi, MI), said one of the biggest challenges the metal AM industry as a whole faces is
A look inside the build chamber of the SLM500, equipped with four lasers to make complete engines.
There are at least two major problems with finding qualified workers for metal AM: skillset and the pool of potential workers. Tackett noted it takes a very broad set of skills to work
effectively in a metal AM operation. Workers need knowl- edge of and skills in computer science, metallurgy, coor- dinate measuring systems, mechanics, gas flow, heat and lasers, for starters. “The list goes on and on,” he said. Design is another skill that’s lacking in today’s metal AM
operators, Krampitz added. “In traditional manufacturing, you designed a part for injection molding; nowadays if you’re running a plastics ad- ditive machine and you design a part as you did for injec- tion molding, you have no competitive edge,” Tackett said. “Now I can design purely for function.”
automation. His company’s solution has been to partner with other companies already expert in automation with the use of robotics, palletized chucks and other technolo- gy. A palletized chuck is a workpiece holder that transfers from one machine to another while maintaining critical reference points. By doing so, it ensures accuracy and increases efficiency. In June 2015, EOS partnered with GF Machining Solu- tions (Schaffhausen, Switzerland) to develop solutions for moldmakers. EOS’ machines are well suited for making metal inserts with cooling close to the surface, speeding up mold cooling and hastening the plastic injection cycle. GF will contribute software and link the EOS machines downstream with its EDM and high-speed milling tools, and measuring devices. Other types of software are also needed.
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Photo courtesy of SLM Solutions
Spring 2016
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