Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
YBI, YSU Work to Advance 3-D Metals Processing
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- A proposal under development by the Youngstown Business Incubator and Youngstown State University is seeking $500,000 in funding from the Ohio Third Frontier program to create a network that would help manufacturers integrate additive manufacturing into their metals processing.
"As a region we have an opportunity to really capture this technology and integrate it first and have it broadly adopted," says Barb Ewing, YBI's chief operating officer. "We want to be a one-stop shop to help our local manufacturing base understand when to use additive for printing metals and when not to."
YBI invited representatives of local businesses to the incubator Friday for an informational session related to how these companies could employ 3-D printing in sync with traditional post-processing technologies, creating a cluster of "hybrid manufacturing" firms in the Mahoning Valley.
About 10 businesses representing a variety of manufacturers attended, Ewing says.
"We had the very large and the very small. This is such a flexible technology. So, if somebody is currently manufacturing metal parts, they really should get in contact with us and find out more about what we're doing and whether it will apply to them," she says.
The partnership wants to help these companies understand the concept and how it could help their business and industry. "It's not as simple as buying a piece of equipment and starting to print. You have to understand the design parameters -- when to use it, when not to use it," she says.
Ewing reports the partnership has already secured commitments from some of these companies, and the feedback from the meeting was overall very positive.
Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, uses a printing-like method to build parts from a variety of materials layer by layer, eliminating the need for expensive tooling or dies. Recently, YSU and YBI secured funding for research related to additive manufacturing in the metals casting industry.
"In the long-term, I think we're going to build a very strong and vibrant network that will tie back with our sand core and casting proposal," Ewing says. "We're going to marry these two things up."
Brett Conner, director of advanced manufacturing workforce initiatives at YSU, says the objective is to attract local manufacturers that can use 3-D printing in either the fabricating process, or take a printed part and apply post-processing technologies to develop a more precise component.
"The feedback was really positive," Conner says. "For some, this was the first exposure to this type of technology. For others, they were familiar with it."
Companies that rely on assembling these components into a final product can also benefit from additive manufacturing, Conner says. "They're delivering systems to customers, and they want to be able to use these printed parts in their assemblies and have the confidence that they will meet their specifications," he adds.
YBI's Ewing says the transition to additive manufacturing is already in motion, and she and others want to see the Mahoning Valley lead the way.
"These technologies will dramatically change the shape of U.S. manufacturing," she says. "It is happening at the very small scale right now, but as it starts to ramp up it will be more like a wave and we'll see dramatic change. We need our companies to be at the forefront of that change."
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email.