News and press releases

09/01/2007 Six months of time saving for CERATIZIT customers CERATIZIT applies Rapid Prototyping

In order to become even faster, CERATIZIT has introduced a new method for the production of test parts: Rapid Prototyping. In other words: the rapid production of test parts. To test whether new ideas or carbide parts work in practical application CERATIZIT customers  always first request test parts. Obviously, the quantity produced is very small, ranging between 20 and 30 pieces. With Rapid Prototyping it is now possible to save time even with these small quantities and to accelerate the development at the customer. Thanks to the reduced delivery time of complex carbide parts which are indispensable for carrying out the tests, the cycle time of test, evaluation and reconstruction is clearly decreased.

CERATIZIT as development partner
In addition to being a supplier CERATIZIT supports the customers also in terms of development and implementation of their ideas. In essence CERATIZIT's contribution is the fast delivery of recently developed carbide components. “Short delivery times of our parts also reduce the construction time, test time and evaluation time at our customer which considerably accelerates product development,” says Dr. Michael Magin from the development department application engineering, system analysis and simulation. In this manner the customer has more time to test various drafts, choosing the best construction. So CERATIZIT perfectly satisfies the customers’ needs. “A trend can be observed amongst our customers that they wish to offer technically improved products within an ever shorter period of time," says Magin. “In particular customers who produce for end-users want to replace their products by new ones more frequently than ever. This is how our customers are able to distinguish themselves better from competitors“.

Simplified and accelerated process
“Before Rapid Prototyping was developed samples of parts with complicated forms used to involve a lengthy and expensive process,” says expert Magin. The drawings on paper, handed in at CERATIZIT by customers, represented the basis for the production of oftentimes complicated test pressing tools. For this purpose a special unique form was manufactured in which the carbide powder was pressed to become the future tool.

In order to offer the test parts faster, in the initial phase CERATIZIT abstains from manufacturing the test pressing tool. The milling of carbide blocks is nowadays done by a computer-controlled machine tool. In this way the requested geometry can be formed from the sintered raw blocks using the CNC milling machines. Depending on the size of the carbide block it takes the milling machine between 20 minutes and several hours to machine it. The basis is still the drawing and thus the idea of the customer. In the meantime the customer no longer sends it on paper but as a CAD file.

“For Rapid Prototyping it is necessary to construct the component in 3-D. A simple two-dimensional drawing is not sufficient,” says development expert Magin. “Our customers now use special conversion programmes where the form of the component is written in a standardised file and sent to us via e-mail. Using Rapid Prototyping does not increase the workload for our customers. Nevertheless we are able to implement the ideas of our customers much faster. In fact the drafts of the customer need not be laboriously rebuilt by CERATIZIT, but are available for the staff within a few minutes. The customer ordering a Rapid Prototyping component does not have to bear any additional costs, the conversion programmes are typically a part of the CAD programmes which are being used anyway.

Eventually the milled carbide parts are sintered and, if requested, coated afterwards. “In this way we managed to reduce the production time of prototypes to two or three weeks. Depending on the project, our customers save about a year. This can be decisive for the success of a product," says Magin proudly. When the customer’s own tests confirm that the right solution has been found for him, CERATIZIT produces a pressing tool that is able to provide larger quantities,” explains Magin.