HP is accelerating its path to the digital transformation of manufacturing with high-volume 3D production with the Reinventing HP With Multi Jet Fusion program. Additive technologies are rapidly growing across the whole industry: more than 3 million parts were produced with Multi Jet Fusion alone in 2017, more than 50% for end use. According to Wohlers Report 2018, the production of functional parts, including functional prototyping, is the industry’s leading additive manufacturing use-case, and the demand for production-grade parts is expected the continue to grow exponentially.
Many customers worldwide are thus ramping up 3D printing installations, and HP itself is then digitally reinventing its own product lyfecicle, embracing its own 3D printing technology to transform the design, production and distribution of HP products worldwide. The HP’s program aims to leverage its own 3D printing technology to lower costs, speed time to market, increase customer satisfaction and improve sustainability, using Multi Jet Fusion across its print, personal systems and 3D printing business. An amount of 50% of the custom plastic parts inside the Jet Fusion 4200, and over 140 parts inside the new Jet Fusion 300/500 Series, can be for example produced using the Multi Jet Fusion technology. The design freedom of the 3D printing also allows to increase product performances in areas such as improved airflow, lightweighting and optimization for space constraints, as well as lower costs and increased manufacturing flexibility, as it alleviates tooling and assembly time and costs.
Another example is the re-design of the HP’s Large Format Printers, in order to make use of topological optimization and entering mass production with a 93% weight reduction, a 50% cost reduction and a 95x carbon footprint reduction versus the original aluminum machined part. The technology is reducing design time by up to 50% for numerous parts across HP products, due to replacing complex multicomponent parts with one 3D printed part, thus eliminating many tooling, assembly, quality, and complex supply chain costs.
Finally, HP is also pioneering 3D printing benefits such as reduced warehousing and transportation due to on-demand production, reduced scrap as a result of better supply/demand control, reduced material consumption and increased material recyclability, and reduced fuel consumption of the end product in industries such as auto and aerospace thanks to lightweight designs possible only with 3D printing.