Contractors Hot Line is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
Contractors Hot Line is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
Time is money, they say, and nowhere is that more true than in the construction industry.
In the ever-evolving landscape of industrial manufacturing, 3D printing is not just a cool technology for rapid prototyping, but is now becoming a critical part of the production processes.
As 3D printing is increasingly being used to create everything from prosthetic limbs, custom toys and even entire structures, construction equipment manufacturers are also quickly advancing beyond using 3D printing for simple and fast design and prototyping.
The technical term used to describe the 3D printing of physical objects, using digital data obtained from 3D scanners, is called additive manufacturing (AM).
At its inception — and for most of its existence — AM has proven to be far more of a novelty than a paradigm-shifting innovation, led by do-it-yourself, open-source nerds in the nascent 3D printer community.
Originally developed in 1987 during the end of the Cold War, the first AM printer was used for creating three-dimensional maps with a technique known as Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA), layer by layer.
The materials used for AM in the printing of heavy equipment components currently include various metals available in powdered form such as titanium, aluminum, copper, stainless steel, nickel alloy as well as numerous types of plastics and resins.
Frequency and Colossal Costs of Downtime
In a study about proficiency in the construction industry, McKinsey & Co. found the cost of the project is directly correlated to the certainty of overruns — meaning the larger a budget for a project gets, the more you can depend on the project being delayed and running significantly over-budget.
“The industry does poorly completing megaprojects on time, on budget and to specifications,” the study said. “Our research estimates that 98% of megaprojects suffer cost overruns of more than 30%; 77% are at least 40 % late.”
One of the fastest ways to snarl a job site (and a project budget) is broken equipment. According to a study about the cost of downtime, the average cost of downtime across all industries has historically hovered around $5,600 per minute, but has spiked to close to $9,000 per minute over the past decade.
No doubt, this surge in the cost of downtime is attributed to the increased sophistication and cost of the innovative equipment mechanizing every aspect of construction. In fact, the productivity study found that 98% of companies reported that one hour of downtime costs them more than $100,000. Of these downtime costs, more than 42% of them are due to broken equipment.
Heavy equipment is constantly exposed to harsh environments, extreme temperatures and constant wear and tear, resulting in frequent breakdowns, malfunctions and failures that require these costly and time-consuming repairs. As we mentioned earlier, the hourly cost of heavy equipment downtime is staggering, with the McKinsey study putting the average downtime cost at a medium-to-large-scale jobsite at around $180,000 … per hour.
Why AM Is Flourishing
Once a piece of equipment goes down, a conglomerate of forces, from supply chain delays to severe scarcity of repair technicians, combine to keep equipment sitting for weeks.
Additive manufacturing is especially adept at producing spare parts for heavy equipment, especially expensive or rare machinery.
Components can be printed directly from digital files or can be scanned on site, reducing destructive downtime and maintenance costs. This is especially valuable in heavy equipment industries where downtime costs get to seven figures in a lunch break.
The uptake of 3D printing in the field of construction equipment has also been driven by recent supply chain disruptions and shortages over the past five years, forcing heavy equipment manufacturers and operators alike to believe in the dream of a digital supply chain.
According to a report from Swedish research firm MDPI, about half (52%) of all AM applications around the globe are used for rapid prototyping, fit and assembly verification, models or visual aids. However, using AM to produce actual spare parts now represents the fastest growing segment of the market, accounting for 40% of all usage.
By combining AM techniques with other techniques, like Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology, making end-use parts for the heavy equipment industry allows these printed parts to be created — and deployed — exponentially faster and for a fraction of the price of heavier metal parts. The benefits AM brings to reducing downtime for out-of-production or customized equipment are so cost effective due to the tool-less nature of AM.
Freedom of Design
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like Volvo CE and John Deere are using AM techniques to create replacement and spare parts for their European fleets, on-demand, cutting costly delivery time and reducing or even eliminating the need for inventories.
One of the greatest advantages to using AM is the unbridled freedom it gives the designer, eschewing the traditional constraints of complexity and geometry, so that quite literally anything a designer imagines can be made precisely as conceived. A world where the complexity of actually building the part does not, generally, affect whether it can be made, or even greatly affect its cost of a new-found freedom.
Mass Customization
As we mentioned earlier, the primary goal of AM is to move manufacturing toward a digitally-driven supply chain, providing endless opportunities to cut costs associated with supply chain inefficiencies.
With additive manufacturing, parts can be immediately made, with no tooling adjustments and the ability to easily make model changes throughout the lifecycle of every product.
The vast impacts on the capital costs associated with stock control and downtime cannot be overstated, so having the ability to make spare or replacement parts, on the spot, frees companies from the gargantuan costs of expansive warehouses on the supply side and equipment downtime of the end-user side.
From a product design perspective, it also means that every component made can be completely different to the others in a production run without significantly affecting manufacturing cost or time. This opens the door to economically scalable operations, capable of efficient mass customization where creation — regardless of scale — can be customized to each customer.
The Limits of Additive Manufacturing
Like so many innovations in the manufacturing industry, Europe is far ahead of the U.S. in adapting technology like AM. For this new way of designing products to be used effectively, the product design and the computer-aided design industries will need to develop in lockstep with AM techniques, developing new methods for integrating personalized customer data and analytics data from the equipment into their design and production process.
One of the clearest examples of AM’s limitations is “printing” hollow structures, like a sealed, hollow sphere, which is still impossible due to the excess resin, powder or support material required to print these shapes.
The shift towards additive manufacturing is also driven by recent challenges in global supply chains, most recently realized with the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as we reported earlier this year. The Port of Baltimore is one of the country's largest importers of heavy equipment and the spare parts needed to keep that equipment running.
By enabling on-site production of parts, AM technology provides a viable solution to supply chain disruptions, or supply chains in general. The ability to produce components on-demand also aligns with modern approaches to heavy equipment management, such as predictive maintenance, which uses data and analytics to prevent costly downtime from equipment failures before they occur.
As industries continue to adapt and innovate, the role of AM in construction equipment manufacturing and repair is reshaping how companies approach design, production and maintenance. With its ability to reduce costs, enhance product customization and move the needle toward a truly digital supply chain.
