The division has reported a reduction of almost 70% in lead times when 3D printing customised assembly tools in place of traditional plastic and several low-loaded metal tools – eliminating expensive downtime of the production line and ensuring business continuity.

The team is also 3D printing replacement parts for manufacturing equipment, on-demand, reducing the dependency on suppliers and accelerating part delivery to customers.

Explains GKN Florence plant lead process engineer and team leader Carlo Cavallini: “The ability to quickly 3D-print tools and parts that are customised to a specific production need gives us a new level of flexibility and significantly reduces our supply chain.

“Considering that we produce several thousand individual parts a week, this ability to manufacture on-demand is crucial to ensuring our production line is always operational and maintains business continuity.

“As we continue to design parts specifically for additive manufacturing, we are finding more and more applications that are delivering value. In the future, I believe that FDM 3D printing will become an integral part of our entire tool development cycle and help us further improve business performance.”