In manufacturing today, there’s a lot of talk about connectivity, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0. The Factory of Tomorrow will use these technologies to enhance information gathering, automation and production cycle efficiencies — and its all starting sooner than we think.
In the video above, we speak with John Murray, president and CEO of Concept Laser Inc., about General Electric’s (GE) recent acquisition of the company with an eye toward developing this technology.
“The GE acquisition is a game changer in this industry,” Murray said. “Frank Herzog, the founder of Concept Laser, had this vision of the factory of tomorrow where we take humans out of the chain of production. If you look at GE and what they’ve done with Predix on their jet engines and other products, the future is exciting as we move to the next phase of manufacturing.”
In the world of production technology, additive manufacturing is a prime candidate for huge increases in efficiency, speed and manufacturability.
Having the lowest mean time between failures and increasing “up-time,” which is the time when the machines are operating and making money, is becoming a primary concern. Additionally, the aerospace industry is seeing a wider variety of materials available for manufacturing, including super alloys.
Rob Connelly, founder of FineLine Prototyping Inc. and now retired, worked with Murray to develop additively manufactured replacement parts for his own restored, 1940’s era, P51D Mustang.
Together, they successfully reverse-engineered and 3D printed an exhaust manifold, transforming a total of four pieces – a base, two sheet metal pieces and a ring – down to one single part. This is called part consolidation.
“We went back to the original drawings, which called for 316L stainless steel, and that’s what we used for the replacement part,” Murray explained. “We built four of them for Rob’s plane, with two on each side and ran them on a ground test. They performed beautifully, and so its exciting that not only can the industry move forward with this technology, but we can also reach back and restore some of these treasures.”
Murray advocates that with additive manufacturing, design engineers can pick from a greater selection of materials when developing parts.
“One of my favorite quotes was from an aerospace engineer, a materials specialist, who said, ‘I love this technology, because I can play god with metals,’” Murray said. “I think about the excitement of GE with their advanced turbo prop engine, reducing 850 parts down to 12. That is the future.”
One of the biggest challenges for additive manufacturing has been the build envelope. However, with advances in the technology, Murray believes this will quickly become a nonissue.
“We have the X line, which is the largest platform in the world right now; we’ve had great demand for that recently. GE has all kinds of things in the closet, so to speak, that are going to be significant in the industry. I think we’re going to see expansion on all fronts: for size, capabilities, materials, options and reliability.”
Concept Laser’s X line 2000R has a build volume of up to 31.5” x 16” x 20”, with dual 1kW lasers and a build rate of up to 120cm3/hr.
For more information, visit the Concept Laser and GE websites.