‘The dream is right here’: Guayente Sanmartin displays on the HP 3D printing story to date
When simply six brief years in the past, HP laid out its plans to break into the $12 trillion manufacturing market with a brand new 3D printing expertise, its ambitions, whereas backed by a model identified for its success elsewhere within the printing enviornment, appeared, effectively, formidable.
The rise of HP’s success within the AM trade may be charted not solely by its product launches and a rising checklist of companions and installations, however extra importantly, within the variety of elements printed on these machines. In 2018, the corporate reported a complete of 3.5 million elements produced utilizing its Multi Jet Fusion expertise since its launch, 50% of which had been for end-use functions, some even destined for its personal 3D printers. A yr later, that quantity shot to over 10 million. Immediately, it’s 100 million plus. Whereas which may look like small change to the broader, subtractive manufacturing trade, for these optimised, customised, small-to-mid run elements the place AM actually shines, out of the blue, these ambitions don’t appear so steep.
“We’re already in manufacturing so the dream is right here,” Guayente Sanmartin, World Head of HP’s Multi Jet Fusion enterprise advised TCT in a current dialog at Formnext. “Can we dream larger? Sure. That’s why we will be persevering with to disrupt applied sciences in industries the place we wish to take part, not solely from the printing aspect, however disrupting total industries. But additionally proceed disrupting with our companions and prospects [for other] industries in plastic and metallic. So the dream continues to be huge. We wish to be larger.”
We meet in a restaurant away from the bustle of the Formnext present flooring the place Sanmartin is holding a small 3D printed coronary heart in her hand, a present from a female-owned enterprise, she tells me. Her enthusiasm for this trinket, characterised by its only-3D printable lattice and the shopper story behind it, encapsulates why Sanmartin has discovered herself on this sector. Sanmartin has witnessed HP’s ascent within the AM market from each inside and out of doors of the partitions of its Barcelona 3D printing HQ. Having began with HP as an intern over twenty years in the past, travelling everywhere in the world in varied roles, main groups from engineering to companies, Sanmartin says her transfer into HP’s AM enterprise aligned with a private mission to work with a expertise that might make an impression in three key areas.
“The impression on HP, so bringing income and development and transformation,” Sanmartin defined, “Impression on the individuals round me, my companions, inner and exterior, ensure that the 3D organisation grows, personally and as an organisation, we turn out to be higher and extra productive and pleased. After which the third factor was the impression on the society.”
It ought to come as no shock then that one of many areas thrilling Sanmartin most proper now could be the adoption of HP’s expertise in healthcare. She factors to functions similar to personalised surgical guides, and the speedy manufacture of face shields within the early months of the pandemic as 3D printer customers rallied to provide much-needed PPE for native hospitals and key staff. Within the UK alone, 50,000 face shields, masks adjustors and hands-free door openers had been manufactured with the assistance of HP’s Jet Fusion expertise deployed by service suppliers and universities.
“What I’m enthusiastic about personally might not be the factor that grows essentially the most,” Sanmartin stated. “What excites me extra is these segments which can be rising, which can be on the tipping level for maximising our enterprise brief time period. So we’re doing a whole lot of issues in healthcare, in addition to industrial, client items and automotive. Like in mobility and the auto sector, now with electrical automobiles, we’re seeing huge demand for additive manufacturing elements and Multi Jet Fusion as a result of we’re the perfect in AM manufacturing for high quality, reliability, pace and value.”
The important thing, Sanmartin says, has been specializing in the ache factors AM can supply an answer to and perceive the alternatives to – right here’s that phrase – “rework or disrupt,” whether or not that’s beating out injection moulding on pace or bettering affected person outcomes with lowered remedy instances and personalised care. Latest software examples embody Multi Jet Fusion person Glaze Prosthetics which is now capable of produce and ship customised merchandise inside 1-2 weeks after bringing its prosthetic arm manufacturing course of in-house, or Nissan which, by means of a collaboration with SOLIZE Company, has been utilizing HP’s expertise for the on-demand manufacturing of discontinued substitute elements for its NISMO Heritage Components programme. At Formnext, HP additionally introduced L’Oreal as one in all its newest prospects. The cosmetics firm is utilizing Multi Jet Fusion to create new packaging and customised merchandise, together with adjustable manufacturing ‘pucks’ that are stated to have allowed L’Oreal to convey, fill, and label its merchandise with higher agility, leading to a 33% discount in price and 66% discount in time.
“We’re working with them in two elements,” Sanmartin stated. “One is for his or her manufacturing traces which Multi Jet Fusion may be very fitted to and we’re additionally exploring, as we do with different prospects, functions that transcend industrial tooling. […] We like to have such a large model and innovator prepared to rethink their merchandise with Multi Jet Fusion.”
L’Oreal plans to scale its manufacturing throughout HP’s Digital Manufacturing Community, which not too long ago secured greater than 30 new licensed suppliers (or Multi Jet Fusion Manufacturing Professionals), to ship certified native manufacturing companies. This distributed manufacturing community helps stats introduced by HP final yr, bolstered by ongoing conversations round provide chain disruption, which surveyed greater than 2,000 AM and digital manufacturing professionals and located that 79% felt AM was a viable various to conventional manufacturing, whereas 75% urged that 3D printing could also be used as a back-up to conventional means.
“Once you go into manufacturing of elements, not everyone is able to leap into shopping for the machines, but they wish to have an answer for repeatability and industrialisation,” Sanmartin stated of the demand for licensed manufacturing companions like Forecast 3D, Jawstec and Weerg. “So what are we doing for these prospects? […] We’re linking a buyer that wants elements with a manufacturing companion and HP helps to create demand, the community is an ecosystem accelerating AM manufacturing.”
Whereas HP’s success to date has been centred round polymers, its subsequent frontier is metals. HP’s Steel Jet expertise, a binder jet-based metallic 3D printing course of, made its debut in 2018 alongside manufacturing companions GKN Powder Metallurgy and Parmatech. The intention was to put the expertise to work earlier than releasing machines onto the market, however in keeping with Ramon Pastor, World Head of HP’s 3D metals enterprise, the corporate is “on monitor to launch in 2022.” Clients like Cobra Golf have used the expertise to provide customised gear, and earlier this yr, HP shared how the US Marine Corps had 3D printed 200 spare elements for its Amphibious Assault Automobile (AAV) through Parmatech. In the meantime, Volkswagen has set itself a goal of manufacturing 100,000 additively manufactured elements at its Wolfsburg facility every year by 2025, and is now utilizing the expertise to provide ultimate elements, which weigh virtually 50% lower than standard elements, for the A pillar of its T-Roc Cabriolet. Might a 100 million printed metallic half milestone be such a stretch?
“HP’s 3D printing platforms have been optimised for industrial manufacturing, each plastics and metals,” Sanmartin stated. “Like Multi Jet Fusion, our metals expertise leverages HP’s basic printing IP to ship vital advantages for our prospects. 3D metals manufacturing is extra complicated, so the power to supply an industrial resolution that meets the calls for for the manufacturing of 100 million elements will not be straightforward, however the Steel Jet crew is doing superb issues with our prospects.”
As we shut our dialog, Sanmartin is on her option to a meet-up organised by Ladies in 3D Printing, a non-profit that promotes girls leaders within the AM trade. It’s a private ardour and Sanmartin remarks how “fortunate” she feels “to work in an organization that offers girls, everybody, a whole lot of alternative.” Sanmartin defines herself utilizing 5 key pillars – or hashtags, as she refers to them – household, buyer innovation course of, technique to execution (noting a choice for getting immersed with R&D and managing groups), people-first, and eventually, a “woman-believer.”
“In my spare time, which now on this new position with onboarding I haven’t got [much of], however I wish to develop and assist different girls,” Sanmartin stated. “No matter it’s. Not everyone must be a common supervisor. What I would like is for them to take pleasure in their skilled life.”
Trying forward, Sanmartin is assured in HP’s capability to guide the area, suggesting that the corporate has already turn out to be “the chief in industrial thermoplastics in solely 5 years,” and for HP, that 100 million elements milestone serves as an vital proof level. Now, Sanmartin says whereas HP was affected person and labored behind the scenes for a superb twenty years earlier than they joined the 3D printing race, the corporate is dedicated to staying “forward of everybody else”, significantly because the adoption of AM in manufacturing continues to develop.
“We’re pleased as a result of it is a market the place there’s a area for everybody,” elaborated Sanmartin. “We’re dedicated to guide. We’re dedicated to manufacturing centred on the shopper, section ache factors, choosing and specializing in these issues that we are able to remedy with our expertise, delivering half high quality and system repeatability.”
Sanmartin provides that HP’s Jet Fusion 5200 system, essentially the most superior iteration of its polymer Multi Jet Fusion expertise, is “the correct platform” for manufacturing and hints at upcoming upgrades which can present improved repeatability and half high quality, along with enhancements to automation, digital workflows {and professional} companies by means of further collaborations.
Sanmartin concludes: “We imagine sooner or later for manufacturing and we’re right here doing it.”
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