Plastics News Europe - June 2018 - 11

automotive: additive manufacturing

BMW Mini exterior personalisation

on demand:
today a reality
Additive manufacturing
automotive and public
transport applications were
among features at the PIAE
2018 congress. David Vink
reviews the presentations in
this relatively new area.

ust a few short years ago, additive
manufacturing was mostly about
prototyping. Now, as new materials
and technologies continue to evolve, this
technology is increasingly gaining ground
as a new means of production. Despite
lower production speeds than injection
moulding, the ability to provide personalisation at reasonable cost - after all, the
expense of design and of cutting mould
tools is eliminated - is gradually proving
irresistible. As automotive OEMs increasingly seek to offer differentiation to customers through personalised features,
3D printing can provide the required
solution. It can also solve the problem of
finding replacement parts on old classic
cars for which parts and tooling are no
longer available, as these can simply be
printed.
In a BMW presentation - "Your Mini
with a personalised touch" - at the March
2018 VDI plastics in automotive engineering (PIAE) congress, this was specifically
addressed by Gabriele Fruhmann, of the

june 2018

additive materials material approvals department and Dr Dominik Rietzel, manager
of the non-metallic section of the BMW additive manufacturing centre.
This touch is already visible on BMW
Mini cars with individual emblems bearing the owner/drivers name, signature or
whatever, applied as part of the front exterior body direction indicator units, as
well as interior trim parts in five matt colours: Aspen White, Chili Red, Starlight
Blue, Moonwalk Grey and Jet Black, on all
of which customers can have their own
freely configurable field.
Mini has first launched the Mini Yours
Customised service in the UK; the personalised touch is to become available during
2018 for many Mini models in Europe
and "other large markets", with customers either ordering their items for 3D
printing or laser sintering in an online
webshop, or in new, dedicated "distribution chain outlets".
Production of individualised decorative items in large volumes remains challenging, said Fruhmann. BMW is therefore closely watching the different
developments in this area. For plastics,
the company already makes use of 3D
Systems Viper si SLA stererolithography
photopolymeric printing and EOS laser
sintering equipment but is also keeping
an eye on emerging technologies such as
DLS digital light synthesis (known earlier
as CLIP) from Carbon and Hewlett Packard's MJF Multijet fusion system.

➡ Continued on page 12

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News Europe - June 2018