Additive Manufacturing, or 3D Printing, has many uses in the parts production industry. It is used for prototyping, molding, and creating custom parts and tools. According to Fortune Business Insights, it has become nearly a $20 billion industry in the United States, with an expected growth of more than $101 billion by 2032.
Champion Plastics of Auburn Hills, Michigan, doesn’t use 3D Printing to create production parts but incorporates the technology to improve efficiency. “We use it as an auxiliary tool,” said Jeff Ignatowski, co-owner and president. “We use it to check fixtures for quality checks.”
The results have been positive, as his company consistently hits the 100% on-time delivery mark with zero quality defects and has received quality awards from General Motors and Harley-Davidson. They serve more than 30 customers in the automotive and motorcycle industries while meeting the needs of other firms in the industrial and consumer markets. At least 20 different types of parts come off the production line daily, and the team develops 30 to 40 new parts each year.
Before implementing 3D printing, creating gauges and fixtures was outsourced and expensive, and the turnaround took weeks. Now, they have results overnight.
Champion Plastics also uses 3D Printing to examine potential new tight-tolerance products. Ignatowski said a client might send a CAD file to develop a part, and his engineers will print a version ten times the designed size to examine it better and evaluate its critical characteristics. “3D printing has been extremely helpful for development and quality inspections,” he said.
The technology also benefits quality control. The company uses a Keyence measuring device to inspect parts for dimensional accuracy. If a part doesn’t have the proper orientation, 3D printers create a fixture to align it to ensure proper measurement. Go/No Go Gauges checks are used to check parts without measuring the pieces. Gauges are printed to physically restrict a part from passing or rejecting inspection of certain features. “Our speed to market is the biggest impact” of in-house 3D Printing, Ignatowski said.
Champion Plastics’ most recent use of Additive Manufacturing has been for its End-of-Arm Tools (EOAT), which grab parts off the production line and package them for shipping. The three- and six-axis robots used for this work use grabbing tools that fit products with different geometries and require custom-made ends to fit specific parts. 3D Printing quickly creates the needed tools.
As a small business, they must remain current on Industry 4.0 trends. “We need to manage (growth) with technology,” Ignatowski explained. “We need to deal with these issues and not just throw people at it. We want to use our labor for skilled activities and not mundane tasks.”
The average employee has been with the company for ten years, and some have required reskilling and upskilling as technology has changed. Ignatowski and his partner, Vice President of Operations Matt McDermott, worked closely with their workforce to determine where new skills were needed and used grants from the State of Michigan to help fund the training. The employees embraced the opportunity. “They loved it,” Ignatowski said. “There may have been some anxiety when they were uncertain of what was needed in their positions, but this gave them the knowledge to be more comfortable.”
Champion Plastics has 25 employees without middle management, and that intimacy has created a positive work culture and fostered a healthy communication stream between ownership and the workers on the floor. “We ask employees for their ideas,” Ignatowski said. “We want to know what they think. That dialogue is crucial.”
The two owners get their “hands dirty,” Ignatowski said, by working the production line to see what’s working and what needs improvement. Ignatowski said Champion Plastics has experienced “historic growth” of 25- 30% over the past few years by developing a positive work environment and embracing technology such as additive manufacturing, which improved product quality and increased customer delivery time. He expects that trend to continue.
Read our Integr8 Playbook, "Additive Manufacturing at The Tipping Point," here.
