Currently, Comau, the Italy-based producer of robotic techniques owned by One Fairness Companions and automaker Stellantis, has fashioned a rising variety of partnerships with firms within the additive manufacturing (AM) area, highlighting the rising position that robotic arm techniques are enjoying in AM {hardware}. An particularly noteworthy side of Comau’s heightened consideration to the AM market is the variety of the purposes that the automation agency is impacting.
By its partnership with CEAD, a Dutch producer of large-format composite 3D printers, Comau has helped disrupt the maritime business, with CEAD’s printers getting used to print drone boats and, most just lately, workboat hulls. The corporate has additionally partnered with Germany’s KraussMaffei, a significant producer of plastic extrusion techniques (amongst different issues), that are used for every part from client items to building initiatives.
As for steel elements, Comau has made vital inroads with firms that make the most of coating supplies to restore and produce elements. Its collaboration with Prima Additive, just lately acquired by main machine instrument provider Sodick, has supported Prima’s improvement of a extra sustainable course of for coating brake discs for the automotive business. And Comau’s partnership with Australian chilly spray AM OEM Titomic has contributed to the latter’s means to pursue its personal formidable world progress technique surrounding its cultivation of a community of key companions.
In a press launch about Comau’s multidimensional penetration of the AM business, the corporate’s Chief Buyer Administration Officer, Giacomo Del Panta, mentioned, “Comau’s technique of coming into new market sectors to satisfy elevated demand for superior manufacturing applied sciences is being accelerated by a collection of necessary collaborations with main companions and clients throughout varied industries. This strategy exemplifies our dedication to innovation and marks an necessary step in our broader journey towards world progress.”
3D printed boat at Abu Dhabi Maritime. Picture courtesy of Al Seer Marine through CEAD
Notably in an setting of persistent and proliferating provide chain challenges, the AM business and robotic producers have nearly countless potential for synergy. Above all, that is the case relating to large-scale elements, for which printers primarily based on robotic arm techniques have a critical benefit in manufacturing.
Alongside these strains, given how disproportionately affected automakers are by the tariff insanity that the White Home has unleashed on the planet, Comau’s success at focusing on automotive purposes — alongside the truth that Stellantis is without doubt one of the main stakeholders within the robotics OEM — could trace on the elevated position that robotic arm 3D printers may tackle within the reshoring of automobile half provide chains. Within the quick run, that will be an enormous boon to localized manufacturing of spare elements, which may assist gradual the rise in prices which have plagued each suppliers and shoppers.
In the long term, an increase within the auto business’s familiarity with robotic arm 3D printers may very well be transformational for the method of auto design, which can be most helpful to the West’s makes an attempt to catch as much as China within the EV/hybrid race. These are definitely quite a lot of “ifs”, however on the very least, it’s reassuring to know {that a} main participant within the robotics business sees such broad-sweeping demand indicators for AM {hardware}.
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