3M Korea

 

In-Hwan Lee
Specialist Product Engineer
Mechanical Designer,
3M Korea

3M Improves its Design Process and Gains Manufacturing Confidence with Objet 3D Printing

Bacground
3M serves customers through six business segments, producing some of the world's best-known consumer brands, such as Scotch®, Post-it®, and Scotch-Brite®. The 3M Korea branch produces a wide range of household and electronic products.

The Challenge
3M Korea was facing a rapid increase in design projects. This required a more systematic and streamlined approach to the design, review and verification of new products, prior to molding and manufacturing.

"Outsourcing was clearly slowing down our design and verification process," said In-Hwan Lee, Specialist Product Engineer/Mechanical Designer. "It was not only an issue of timing and schedules, but also of versatility and quality. It affected our ability to verify products with different materials and surface properties, and the number of design iterations we were able to fit into a schedule."

The solution
The 3M Korean team decided to bring prototyping in-house. It evaluated several prototyping technologies and solutions, closely comparing machine and materials cost, model precision, maintenance, and simplicity of post-processing operations.

"We selected the Objet Eden350 3D Printer because of the combined effect of its features," said In-Hwan Lee. "For us, some of the top features were the 16-micron printing resolution, the wide selection of materials, and the ability to use the same machine to produce prototypes with different rigid and rubber-like materials."

The Value
The Objet Eden350 3D Printer has become a key component in 3M's design and confirmation process. With the ability to quickly produce models that provide a highly realistic representation of final products, the 3D Printer is now an indispensable step prior to molding.

"With outsourcing, it took us seven days to produce a prototype," said In-Hwan Lee. "Now, it's a single-day process. Cost wise, the change is even more dramatic – 10 times cheaper. A mockup used to cost us $2,500-3,500, whereas now the cost is $250-350."

The accessibility of the Objet Eden350 3D Printer and the significant time savings has allowed the 3M te am to speed up its design process and run more design projects simultaneously. In-Hwan Lee added that "another soft benefit that cannot be overlooked is the stability and predictability it has brought into our process. We have much higher confidence in our process and in the manufacturability and outcome of our final designs."

“Cost wise, the change from outsourcing is even more dramatic.  It is 10 times cheaper to produce a mockup with 3D printing.”