Burgaflex explores 3D printing for Automotive
Using industrial 3D printing Burgaflex creates better products and is able to offer a more flexible and fast service towards their automotive customers.
Burgaflex is a world player in producing tube, fitting and hose assemblies for the automotive industry. With many big and exclusive automotive customers Burgaflex excels in high quality and flexible production services with short lead-times. As part of their ongoing quest to deliver better products, Burgaflex decided to focus their efforts on identifying and developing 3D printed applications and production tooling.
Producing better products, more flexibly
Burgaflex already used 3D printing in production to improve the process. By printing various tools and jigs they were able to increase the quality of products and increase the production speed. But they knew this was just the start. After seeing 3D printed parts in metal Burgaflex realized this could potentially be a big opportunity for themselves as well as their customers. That was the starting point of a collaboration with Additive Center. In a series of workshops Additive Center experts collaborated with the Burgaflex team. We shared relevant inspirational case studies, challenged them to think differently and trained the team on basic Additive Manufacturing skills. This resulted in 15+ applications identified all with potential to improve the business. Using Additive Center’s expertise on industrial 3D printing a selection of the applications were developed further and printed using industrial 3D printers in both plastic and metal.
Burgaflex, Automotive and 3D printing.
The Burgaflex team committed themselves to take the next steps. Through careful collaboration Additive Center has redesigned 2 of their existing products, shown below. The redesigns will be showcased at the AgriTechnica trade fair, world’s leading trade fair for agricultural machinery. As General Manager Burgaflex Jeroen van Nederkassel said: “We analyzed the potential impact of these case studies and concluded that they have the potential to enable the production of small series cost effectively. Next to this, it will help our customers to improve the performance of their hose assemblies and battery cooling systems while decreasing the complexity of the parts and its supply chain. We look forward to collaborating with our customers to validate the applications and set our customers up for success.”
