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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STIM-MC (Sacrificial Thermoplastic Injection Moulding platform for manufacturing small and complex metal and ceramic components)

Teaser

Summary

The STIM-MC project began in January 2019, and has the overall objective of establishing the AddiFab Freeform Injection Molding (FIM) production platform in the metal and ceramic injection molding industries. AddiFab enables the FIM production platform by developing, producing and selling the associated hardware and materials.

FIM is a hybrid of 3D printing and injection molding. The main benefit is that it allows the production of 3D printable shapes with injection molding materials. As there are thousands of commercially available and certified injection molding materials, the FIM platform offers unprecedented degrees of freedom for the designer, and greatly accelerates the production speed of prototypes in true production materials with much reduced costs. Two groups of injection molding materials which are associated with large tooling costs are metal and ceramics injection molding.

STIM-MC contains hardware, process and materials development as well as demonstration and marketing activities, which serve to give AddiFab a strong and unique position in the metal and ceramic injection molding industries, constituting a globally projected market of $5.7 billion in 2022.

Currently half-way through the project, the interest from the injection molding industry has proven to be massive, with normal numbers of sales leads from presence at trade fairs in the hundreds, and six successful collaborations with European metal and ceramic injection molding companies, with numerous active demonstration cases active. The development activities are also progressing, establishing FIM as a larger-than-AddiFab concept. STIM-MC has made it possible for AddiFab to attract additional funding in the form of minority investment by Mitsubishi Chemical.

For the remaining half of the project, the number of collaborations and demonstration activities is expected to increase further, cementing the already considerable traction FIM and AddiFab is experiencing. These activities are supported by the continuous optimization of process parameters and finalization of hardware offerings.

Work performed

Half-way through the project, the STIM-MC project has already produced many significant results. To provide a detailed status of the results, the original objectives of the project can be observed:

1) To prepare a commercial ready platform addressing customers needs and requirements
2) To showcase and validate the advantages of the STIM-MC platform addressing the main market barriers
3) To prepare market introduction to boost the company growth

Ad 1)
Two new print cleaning stations have been developed, broadening the AddiFab hardware portfolio. On the materials front, two new printing resins have been developed, enabling, among other things, faster printing and better precision. The tolerances of the AddiFab production has been measured, to answer the simple, but complex question of achievable precision. The dissolution characteristics of the new printing materials has been examined by laboratory experiments, and the work to create a robust a quality control framework has been begun.

Ad 2)
A large number of dialogues and network meetings have been pursued to identify potential collaboration partners and customers. 24 of these potential collaboration partners and customers have been visited so far, followed up with on-site experimental trials conducted 6 times in Germany, Holland and the UK. At these trials, the compatibility of AddiFab technology and commercially available feedstocks for metal and ceramic injection molding have been consistently demonstrated.

Ad 3)
AddiFab has pursued an aggressive marketing presence with a stand at 6 industry tradeshows, demonstrating the FIM platform hands-on, resulting in literally hundreds of leads (200+ at the TCT Show in Birmingham). To be able to cope with this accumulating customer interest, an experienced Sales Manager and 5 support employees has been onboarded.

Final results

For the remaining half of the STIM-MC project, the print cleaning stations will be finalized, stable production process parameters will be defined, the list of demonstrated, compatible metals and ceramic injection molding feedstocks will be expanded by way of showcases and the marketing effort will be further increased.

The resulting impact on the metal and ceramic injection molding industry, as well as on any injection molding company really, is the availability of a production platform which reduces the time to prototype and enables small-scale production without metal tools. This will serve to reduce the amounts of time and money wasted across the whole industry, freeing up time and capital for all companies involved. This will lead to industry-wide higher profits and enable economic growth.