The challenge
The 10 employees at Rimbøl Teknik A/S in Grindsted combine 40 years of experience in the design and building of feeder equipment such as circular, line, and silo feeders for various industries such as the food and pharmaceutical industry. The company wanted to use 3D printing to reduce time and costs in its design and development work combined with an increased focus on creating new innovative solutions.
The solution
With the introduction of a 3D printer in the engineering department, Rimbøl Technology has saved two-thirds of the costs to develop and manufacture prototypes for advanced machine components.
At Rimbøl Technology in Grindsted, the acquisition of a 3D printer has resulted in massive time and cost savings in the engineering department, while at the same time strengthening the company’s innovation. The ability to test 3D-printed items from the beginning of the development work has furthermore enabled the company to place precisely defined orders with its subcontractors.
Before the company introduced the 3D printer prototypes on new machine components were manually produced or in some cases bought from subcontractors. These processes could be both cumbersome and time-consuming.
“The 3D printer saves us a lot of time. We no longer have to wait for our subcontractors to deliver machine components so we can test them. We can print the parts during the night and test them the next morning,” says engineer Henrik Mundbjerg, Rimbøl Teknik. He adds:
“We save about two-thirds of our former costs and sometimes we can even use the printed parts directly in our final machines.”
Unique feeding solutions
Rimbøl Teknik is using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD to design its machines for feeding equipment. With the addition of the 3D printer, the company’s engineering work has changed completely because it has become able to test new designs immediately. The company can both design and manufacture its systems much faster:
“It’s a combination of much less time spent on development projects and the possibility to put more priority to innovation. We can deliver machine parts no other companies can make,” states Henrik Mundbjerg.”
Same supplier of 3D print and CAD
After scanning the market for 3D printers, Rimbøl Teknik chose a Markforged Mark 2 printer from the company’s supplier of SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software, PLM Group. Henrik Mundbjerg explains:
“When we decided to buy a 3D printer, we had a visit from PLM Group’s consultants. They were very professional so we decided for them as our supplier and partner of 3D printers.
Flying start
In only one day the printer was up and running and used for actual engineering tasks. It was installed in the morning and during the day a training session secured that the engineering department knew how to take full advantage of the solution. The same evening the first parts were printed.
“PLM Group has helped us build the workflows from SOLIDWORKS to the 3D printer and it works really well for us to have one and the same supplier of our entire solution,” explains Henrik Mundbjerg.
The success
- 3D printing saves two-thirds of the costs associated with the development of new machine components
- Time-consuming manual manufacturing of items is removed for the benefit of lightning-fast 3D printing of precise prototypes and ready-to-use parts.
- Better and more efficient communication about new machine parts with subcontractors