Taking a traditionally expensive 10-14 week lead time down to 1 week. ExOne® Innovent+™ printer rapidly produces new product, resulting in driving high-volume sales
Customer Challenge
To develop fasteners for building hardware for customer evaluation. Metal Injection Molding (MIM) was chosen as the manufacturing technology for the serial production. Annual quantity for the fasteners for building hardware is approximately 600,000 pieces in the first year; 1.2M pieces the following years.
The Solution
Because the mold tooling for MIM is traditionally expensive and lead time is usually 10 - 14 weeks, the new product was manufactured using the ExOne Innovent+™ printer. By doing so, MiMtechnik was able to present its customer with samples within 1 week after receiving the customers inquiry.
By using the same powder for the Binder Jetted parts and the MIM serial parts, MiMtechnik could use its current sintering process. Delivered final part properties for the product matched what the customer could expect for MIM parts.
Conclusion
MiMtechnik used the ExOne Innovent+™ to produce and deliver new product designs in 1 week that resulted in a high-volume piece order.
