HP Innovation Journal Issue 09: Spring 2018 | Page 50

Innovation Spotlight
highest levels of part finishing and
quality required by the manufac-
turing industry. “One of our ‘a-ha’
moments came from Jabil explaining
that post-processing is a mandatory
step in finishing parts,” adds Palacios.
“Even parts produced using injection
molding go through this vital process.
Jabil offered a much deeper under-
standing of what was needed from a
manufacturing perspective.”
Jabil applied manufacturing rigor
to part design, testing, validation, and
final qualification, which enabled
HP to integrate continuous quality
improvements into its development
processes. “As a large manufacturer,
we have a sophisticated knowledge of
processes and materials that allows
us to do things others can’t,” notes
Dulchinos. “Together, Jabil and
HP got a tremendous head start in
determining how to make produc-
tion-grade, 3D-printed parts at scale.”
Print the Printer
To demonstrate 3D printing’s read-
iness for manufacturing, HP and
Jabil applied their early learnings to
expedite the production ramp of the
Jet Fusion 3D Printing System. After
proving that certain 3D printed parts
met precision, property, and strength
requirements for specific applications,
the team evaluated the difference in
production costs using 3D printing
instead of traditional injection mold-
ing for the volumes desired.
“We saw breakeven points climb
from 5,000 units to 20,000, 30,0000,
up to 40,000 units,” says Dulchi-
nos. “We’ve also gone through 19
design iterations for a part in the
time it would take us to do one with
50
traditional manufacturing meth-
ods. This speeds time-to-market
and saves a considerable amount of
money, which confirmed our belief
that 3D printing is ready for manu-
facturing applications.”
“We wanted to partner with the
best—in software, materials and
manufacturing—so we could extend
the number of applications and use
cases to really explode the market.
Jabil is a great partner; they know
what it takes to scale manufacturing.”
VI RG I N IA PA L ACI OS
D ire c to r of Strate gic C usto m e r
En g a g e m e nt , H P
In terms of tangible cost savings,
Jabil helped HP realize that a $20
printer part made using traditional
manufacturing methods could be pro-
duced with Multi Jet Fusion for less
than $6 while being 70% lighter. In
addition to lowering time-to-market
and cost barriers, HP has gained sig-
nificant design flexibility. Components
that once had to be separated into
sub-parts with different screws and
assembly requirements now can be
produced as a single, 3D printed part.
“It’s possible to achieve 5X cost
savings when you integrate function-
ality,” notes Nigro. “And, when you
start eliminating assembly costs,
that’s where you really can pick up
big savings.”
To date, Jabil is manufacturing
more than 50 production-quality parts
for HP’s Multi Jet Fusion and other
printers while qualifying additional
parts for volume manufacturing. “We
really trust Jabil’s supply chain expe-
rience,” Palacios asserts. “They can
decide when and where to produce
parts in a distributed manufacturing
environment. We’re assured the part
will arrive on time, to the right line,
to meet our manufacturing needs.”
Think, Design, and Make Differently
Jabil is leveraging early momentum
to help expand the use of 3D print-
ing across other HP businesses. “We
have an ‘HP on HP’ initiative where
we’re looking for places to produce
3D-printed parts instead of making
them with traditional techniques,”
Nigro adds. “Learning cycles are so
much faster with 3D printing; it will
enable us to think, design, and make
products differently.”
To that end, Jabil’s additive man-
ufacturing experts are instrumental
in explaining how parts need to be
designed to achieve desired levels of
design flexibility, mechanical integrity,
and overall part quality. Engineers
from both companies continue to
collaborate on HP’s Multi Jet Fusion
technology roadmap to understand
and fill current gaps in manufactur-
ing while applying early discoveries
to inform the development of materi-
als, processes, machines, and future
3D-printing capabilities to support
ever-increasing customer use cases.
“One of the things we’re really
excited about is the scalability of the
Multi Jet Fusion technology,” says
Palacios. “We will be able to control
the properties of our voxel by chang-
ing its color, elasticity, connectivity
and finish while combining more and
different shapes into one part to
develop products we have yet to imag-
ine. Jabil can help us bring these new
capabilities to market in the upcoming
months and years.”