Zellerfeld, a pioneer and chief within the new age of 3D printed footwear, grew from a store’s basement in New York Metropolis to an internationally profitable producer of (and market for) on-demand, absolutely 3D printed designer and customized footwear. After constructing its personal facility with 200 3D printers and the power to provide a couple of hundred pairs, the corporate goals to scale its manufacturing atmosphere to a number of thousand, as many as 5,000, 3D printers. Zellerfeld turned to the Fraunhofer Institute for Additive Manufacturing Applied sciences IAPT specialists to conceptualize the brand new infrastructure that might be the world’s largest additive manufacturing manufacturing unit.
Additive manufacturing (additive manufacturing for manufacturing) opens up quite a few alternatives, from resource-efficient light-weight development to personalised parts in batch measurement 1, reminiscent of patient-specific implants or customized merchandise. That is the place the enterprise mannequin of the German-American firm Zellerfeld comes into play. It revolutionizes shoe manufacturing by 3D printing purposeful footwear with various designs. The additive manufacturing of the footwear is predicated on particular person scans, making it absolutely digital and, generally, extra sustainable.
This success has led to a quickly rising demand, thus pressuring Zellerfeld to increase its manufacturing capacities. The transition from a whole lot to hundreds of 3D printers requires exact planning of spatial necessities whereas adhering to authorized laws and security facets. On the identical time, Zellerfeld goals to determine and leverage optimization potentialities within the manufacturing course of.
Fraunhofer IAPT and Zellerfeld have accomplished the undertaking’s first part with the definition of necessities for a extremely scaled manufacturing. In the course of the six-week undertaking, the manufacturing metrics related for scaling from the present manufacturing idea had been reviewed, validated, and assessed. The group at Fraunhofer IAPT recognized bottlenecks, highlighted alternatives, and developed sensible suggestions for motion. The necessities catalog has additionally included suggestions, significantly relating to hearth safety, to make sure protected and compliant manufacturing.
A central results of Fraunhofer IAPT’s work is a structure of the manufacturing atmosphere. It considers not solely the association of manufacturing areas but in addition workplace areas and measures for fault tolerance. A well-founded area requirement evaluation varieties the premise for long-term enhancements. Fraunhofer IAPT specified technical and regulatory tips for choosing an optimum property as a future manufacturing web site.
The collectively developed idea permits Zellerfeld to implement its progress technique in a structured and future-oriented method, considerably rising manufacturing from the present 200 3D printers to as much as 5,000 3D printers. It was created in shut collaboration with Zellerfeld’s workers. The methodology of Fraunhofer IAPT ensures an answer that’s theoretically sound and virtually aligned with the true wants of manufacturing.
