A spin-out from a national research organisation in New Zealand, RAM3D set out in 2016 to provide a ‘state of the art’ metal 3-D printing service, spanning design, prototyping and ultimately full-scale production.

To establish its high-quality volume manufacturing capability, RAM3D purchased six Renishaw additive manufacturing (AM) systems, with the intention to invest in more Renishaw machines as the company expands.

The company is a recognised leader for end-to-end metal additive manufacturing (AM) solutions utilising selective laser melting (SLM) in titanium, stainless steel and Inconel metal alloy powders for a range of global industry sectors, including aerospace, marine, food processing.

A spin-out from a national research organisation, the company set out to provide a ‘state of the art’ metal 3-D printing service, spanning design, prototyping and ultimately full-scale production. To establish a high-quality volume manufacturing capability, RAM3D purchased six Renishaw additive manufacturing (AM) systems, with the intention to invest in further machines as the company expands.

Warwick Downing, CEO and co-founder of RAM3D, said: “In our first couple of years, we had to learn very fast and while to a certain extent we were being told what machines we were going to need, we were quick to understand the real impact of operating costs and the need for a more-flexible manufacturing platform.

“We realised early on that those extra ‘bells and whistles’ on an AM machine were not necessarily a good thing. Very often, they were in fact the things that would cause a machine to break down or under-perform. The most important things to us was assuring production process integrity, high-quality and reliability, and ensuring cost efficiency and effectiveness.”

In 2014, RAM3D purchased its first Renishaw AM machine and within a matter of just a few years experienced a seismic shift in the market for metal 3-D printing services. The challenges the company faced first-hand included raising awareness in a nascent marketplace, educating on design for additive manufacture (DfAM), and ultimately gearing up for a shift from just prototyping to full production.

Designing for additive manufacturing
Mr Downing added: “In the beginning we often received inquiries for 3-D metal printing for parts which really weren’t appropriate for the process. So, we have had to spend a lot of time explaining the particular importance of designing for manufacturing and for designing parts specifically for the 3-D additive manufacturing process – the whole concept of what ultimately became known as ‘DfAM’.”

Over time, the company had to contend with a huge shift from low volume prototyping to the provision of a high-volume production service. While of course this is the best kind of problem to be faced with, after years of focused effort and investment, this shift presented challenges.

To respond to the increased customer demand, RAM3D had to ramp up manufacturing capacity while at the same time maintaining the process’s perfect consistency in part quality – irrespective of part complexity, metal material and target volume.

Recognising the advantages of Renishaw’s AM systems, their ease-of-use, quality of their laser beams and their repeatability, RAM3D elected to make Renishaw their partner of choice. The machine purchased at the time was equipped with an optical system delivering 250W of laser power for a beam diameter of just 70µm.

Its human-machine interface was highly graphical and intuitive in nature. Driven by forecast customer demand, the company followed a phased introduction of additional AM machines to meet growing production capacity requirements.

Mr Downing continued: “The machine purchased from Renishaw at the time, was the only one that offered us the flexibility, openness and easy set-up that we were looking for. We had lots of ideas of our own on optimising our manufacturing process, and this machine gave us the freedom that we needed to implement them. If we wanted to change a parameter, to adjust it to more closely suit a particular part, then we could.”

Across its Renishaw AM machines the company prints metal parts in a complete range of high-quality metal powders, including stainless steel 15-5ph, stainless steel 316, inconel 718 and titanium 64, and at the time of writing is also looking to add Maraging tool steel to its product portfolio.

Mr Downing explained: “To be a commercial success in this field, you need to make the right choice of AM machine, make the manufacturing capacity available, and develop the right manufacturing process.”

Since partnering with Renishaw, RAM3D has seen customer part volumes increase rapidly and have been running the machines around the clock for at least six days a week. While demand is very much sector and product specific, the company has seen production run volumes rise from 3,000 to 4,000 mark, up to 12,000 per year, and is expected to reach 20,000 over next few years.

RAM3D’s operating plant in Tauranga consists of seven metal 3-D printing machines, six of which are supplied by Renishaw. The company is also committed to investing in more Renishaw AM machines in the future, including the next generation product offering, the RenAM 500 series, with a plan to have up to 10 operating machines by the turn of the year.

The company is also trialling Renishaw’s QuantAM software. A dedicated build preparation software that optimises part support structures, aligns parts within the build volume and sets up the final 3-D printing file.

By establishing a common platform for its growing AM operations, RAM3D has been able to continuously boost efficiency year-on-year. A process material changeover on a machine for example, from one metal to another metal, can now take less than 1hr.

Volume production
The company is ultimately assuring its volume production customers with guaranteed repeatability and complete consistency in product output. By partnering with Renishaw, RAM3D is helping customers to produce products that are superior in terms of function, part integration, performance, weight and cost effectiveness.

Mr Downing concluded: “Globally speaking, I think the metal 3-D printing sector is at a bit of a tipping point right now, and it is certainly only going to grow in importance and influence. It is no longer a ‘new technology’, it is here and now.”

“More and more innovative businesses are coming to realise that even for the most mature of product types, metal additive manufacturing provides an opportunity to inject new life, by overcoming the design constraints of other manufacturing processes. So with some degree of certainty I would say that metal 3-D printing is going to be pushing hard on perceived manufacturing boundaries in the coming years.”