Ricoh is leveraging Siemens’s additive manufacturing network capabilities to maximise the efficiency of the process and to achieve the scale required to take advantage of BJT in an industrial setting.
Additionally, Ricoh is implementing Siemens’s network to optimise the aluminium BJT workflow for production preparation, planning, scheduling, and production management with less effort. Ricoh has also implemented Siemens' Brownfield Connectivity and has begun collecting and storing information on each process necessary for quality stabilisation and production control. Siemens will continue to provide Ricoh with solutions optimised for the aluminium BJT workflow, and both companies aim for early commercialisation of these technologies.
Ricoh’s BJT technology applies the company’s inkjet printing technology to enable the production of metal parts with more complex shapes that would not be possible with conventional metal processing methods such as machining and casting. In the process of BJT, the aluminium-alloy powder is spread out over the modelling area and then solidified with a specially formulated binder to shape the part. The same process continues layer-by-layer-by-layer until completing shaping the whole part. After the process, the ‘green-body’ part is sintered in a furnace to create a densified, end-use component that can be used as is or enter a downstream post-processing chain.
According to Siemens, metal BJT technology for manufacturing aluminium parts contributes to weight reduction and improved heat exchange performance of aluminium parts by realising shapes that cannot be produced with existing processing technologies. The binder jetting method saves time and resources due to its high productivity and the ability to reuse unused materials. Ricoh's industrial inkjet printhead technology, developed over many years, enables stable manufacturing of parts with complex shapes and is capable of processing aluminium alloy, a widely used material for metal parts.
Zvi Feuer, senior vice president, digital manufacturing software at Siemens digital industries software, said: “Our collaboration with Ricoh will apply its expertise in additive manufacturing with our knowledge and experience in delivering additive-specific operations management technology across a wide spectrum of industries – from order capture, production planning, and manufacturing to part delivery transaction closure. Together, Siemens and Ricoh are working to deliver repeatability and consistency at the scale needed to truly take advantage of using robust and repeatable aluminium additively manufactured parts in the commercial world.”
Tokutaro Fukushima, general manager of additive manufacturing business centre at Ricoh futures business unit, said, “Ricoh will enable our customers to manufacture innovative aluminium components that have never been produced before by any process and will work with them to realise new customer value in the area of electrification of EVs and other forms of mobility. By combining Siemens's powerful solutions and knowledge with Ricoh's aluminium BJT, we will be able to provide our customers with highly reliable and practical systems for mass production applications. We hope to promote electrification together with our customers and contribute to solving social issues such as realizing a zero-carbon society.”