Siemens Mobility advances partnership with Stratasys for enhanced production capabilities

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In order to take service and maintenance in the rail industry to the next level, Siemens Mobility GmbH has invested in a Stratasys Fortus 450mc Production 3D Printer after the need for a robust manufacturing solution that could fulfil the wide-ranging needs of customers quickly and cost-effectively arose.

Located in Dortmund-Erving, Germany, the Siemens Mobility RRX Rail Service Center brings together a range of innovative digital technologies, enabling the company to significantly increase the efficiency of its customer’s rail operations.

As well as increasing flexibility and eliminating the need for spare inventory, Siemens Mobility has added the benefit of an up to 95% reduction in manufacturing and maintenance times to its services as a result of the investment.

Michael Kuczmik, Head of Additive Manufacturing at Siemens Mobility, said: “The ability to 3D print customised tools and spare parts whenever we need them, with no minimum quantity, has transformed our supply chain. We have reduced our dependency on outsourcing tools via suppliers and reduced cost per part, while also opening up more revenue streams by being able to service more low-volume jobs cost-effectively and efficiently.”

Siemens Mobility GmbH, part of Siemens AG, is a major player in the technology and engineering solutions sector for the mobility and transport industries. Through its ‘seamless mobility’ brand and pioneering digitalised rail maintenance centre in Dortmund-Erving, the company aims to become the paradigm in rail maintenance and repair in Europe, with Stratasys FDM additive manufacturing playing an integral role.

Kuczmik added: “We believe our RRX Rail Service Center is the most advanced train maintenance centre in the world. Bringing together a range of innovative digital technologies, we can significantly increase the efficiency of our customer’s rail operations. Stratasys FDM additive manufacturing is an essential ingredient, enabling us to optimise spare parts for longer lifecycles, at reduced cost and in shorter timeframes.”

Flexibility and responsiveness 

With an expected throughput of around 100 trains each month, the RRX Rail Service Center is expecting is anticipating great pressure on the supply chain and therefore requires robust manufacturing solutions. Siemens Mobility turned – seamlessly – to  its longstanding partnership with FDM additive manufacturing to invest in a Stratasys Fortus 450mc Production 3D Printer to meet the high demand. With the ability to 3D print replacement parts on-demand, the mobilitly company has already seen an increase in flexibility to meet customer requirements, as well as other benefits, including:

The ability to rapidly and cost-effectively 3D print one-off replacement and production tools for customised solutions;

  • Tackling workloads that require one-off spare parts, eliminating obsolete parts and warehousing costs;
  • Accelerated customer response due to reduced manufacturing and maintenance times; and
  • Reduced dependency on outsourcing tools via suppliers and decreased cost per part.

Tina Eufinger, Business Development Manager at Siemens Mobility, said: “It takes approximately six weeks to manufacture a final customised part using casting – that’s not only too long a lead time for our customers, but for one-off parts, traditional methods make it financially unviable, To make it cost-effective, we would have to mill large volumes and this would leave us with a lot of obsolete parts.

“With the Fortus 450mc, we can 3D print a part in just 13 hours. Within a week, we can iterate and optimise the design and then 3D print a final, customised production-grade part. This has enabled us to reduce the manufacturing time of each part by up to 95%, which has significantly sped up our ability to respond to customers.”

Agility and ability

The ability to 3D print customised tools on-demand enables Siemens Mobility to be much more agile in production, which is pertinent to the rail industry as vehicles often arrive in the depot unexpectedly due to damage, whether by accident or by vandalism.

For example, and due to their complex shape, the production of an important connector tool that is used to maintain ‘train bogies’ (the chassis or framework that carries the wheelset), is notoriously difficult with conventional methods. Durable materials are required to withstand the significant forces when the vehicle is moving or braking, due to the weight of the bogies. Siemens Mobility now has the ability to use the Stratasys Fortus 450mc to turn around one-off tools customised to each bogie in just a matter of hours, using industrial-grade ULTEM 9085 thermoplastic.

Kuczmik said: “Well-manufactured connectors are essential tools for the effective and safe maintenance of bogies, therefore finding additive manufacturing materials strong enough to withstand such pressures has been an important exercise.

“The ability to 3D print customised tools and spare parts whenever we need them, with no minimum quantity, has transformed our supply chain. We have reduced our dependency on outsourcing tools via suppliers and reduced cost per part, while also opening up more revenue streams by being able to service more low-volume jobs cost-effectively and efficiently.”

With the world moving faster and the demand for smarter mobility growing across industries, in every major city, there is much to be said for the efficiency, rigidity and versatility of the role of plastics in manufacturing.

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