GE Healthcare Life Sciences is broadening its additive manufacturing impact in Sweden with a brand-new facility in the city of Umeå, the firm introduced this week. The $2-million plant will be committed to the serial manufacturing of 3D-printed components for biomanufacturing equipment, completing a trip the components started in the Uppsala center developed in 2018, where product design and validation is carried out. “The two systems sustain the whole additive journey from design as well as 3D prototyping to serial manufacturing, permitting engineers to make progressively complex components and also manufacture them with sub-millimetric accuracy at substantially decreased lead times,” stated GE Healthcare Life Sciences. As soon as product layout and validation are finished in Uppsala, the serial manufacturing of components begins in Umeå.
“Our most current 3D printing facility uses significant performance gains and adds more stamina to our supply chain,” stated Olivier Loeillot, General Manager BioProcess. “The elements produced with additive modern technology are smaller and a lot more resilient. For our clients, this suggests much better top quality, much less waste and simplified layouts. Our 2 additive manufacturing abilities are purposefully situated in Sweden, where we produce chromatography resins as well as bioprocess devices, to speed the supply of bioprocess technologies to market,” explained Loeillot.
The consolidation of additive manufacturing in R&D and manufacturing boosts the agility of the supply chain, enhances advancement as well as manufacturing processes, and also streamlines logistics as well as sourcing, said GE Healthcare Life Sciences in a news release. Improved efficiencies run the gamut from reducing the cost of distribution and setting up to decreasing scrap and accelerating cycle times, according to the company.
The center is initially equipped with a 3D printer for serial production of polyamide parts, a powder mixing station and advanced post-processing devices. It supports the manufacture of elements used in bioprocess equipment consisting of HiScale columns, Biacore SPR systems as well as the recently launched ÄKTA go chromatography system.
