Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia uses their jigs and fixtures measure of quality assurance for their product – Petzl Sitta.

While making jig and fixture is nothing new, what’s interesting is the way Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia integrate 3D printing into their existing processes.

If you own a manufacturing floor you would be very familiar with the usefulness of jig and fixture. They serve as a guide to provide repeatability and consistency.

Be it increasing productivity, or guiding assembly for the product, at the end of the day, jig and fixture helps in ensuring the quality of your product through a standardized dimension and process.

So what does that have to do with 3D printing?

Actually it does.

In this post, we will be sharing on why Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia decided to go ahead with 3D printing jig & fixture and a demonstration on how it works.

#1 Increasing Cost of Jig and Fixture

You won’t have economies of scale while doing jig and fixture.

Jig and fixture was tailored made for specific job across the assembly line. If you have 3 assembly lines with 3 different functions, that means you may potentially need 9 jigs and fixtures.

Assembly line example, imagine CNC that many jig and fixtures.

Do note that manufacturing industry in Malaysia is typically a high-mix industries, which involves a series of different projects with fundamentally different items – this means you need to develop even more jigs and fixtures.

Moreover, considering that the cost of jigs and fixtures made in aluminium – it does not come cheap. With the ever-growing amount of jig & fixture, you would hit a point where you spend more time managing inventory instead of manufacturing them, and this leads to the next point.

#2 Productivity Long Lead Time on Jig & Fixture

To increase productivity whilst maintaining high level of consistency and tolerance is not an easy feat.

What most manufacturers do is to create guides and templates i.e. jig and fixture to maintain quality.

However, spending extra machine capacity on making jig and fixture is  tying up machine tools for production works – which is not money making activity.

On the other hand, outsourcing to other may have issues with lead time that take weeks.

Regardless of your choice, the ultimate issue here is spending time in getting the jig & fixture design right.

The design tolerance and function may not be optimal for the product – simply because machining tools in Malaysia are labor intensive.

With 3D printing, Petzl Manufacturing would just print them out at ease.

Watch How Petzl Uses It For Quality Assurance

This video was recorded during poka-yoke check. Poka-yoke is mistake proofing process that helps Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia to avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). This fool proofing process is meant to eliminate product defects by reducing human errors as they occur.

Here is a closer look on the digital file:

As a harness for mountain climbers, the gold ring needs to be sturdy enough to not buckle when it meets with a light tap. Conforming to it’s light weight design, the gold ring must be within a specified weight to ensure it doesn’t restrict the movement of mountain climbers.

This is why Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia came up with the 3 labels on the right of the jig – “no”, “OK” and “no good” as a testing measurement. As demonstrated in the video, the buckle on jig must not pass through the gold ring on Petzl Sitta to ensure it falls at the OK range.

Integrating 3D Printing as Part of The Core Process

The whole production of the jig only costs 2 hours and 23 minutes to print, with the cost of less than RM 140. This jig in particular was printed in ABS-M30, a thermoplastic material, this application however, is applicable in both technologies, be it FDM or Polyjet.

This not only gives more flexibility and empowering the design team to develop a functional jig, it would also be time saving as well for the company. Issues such as design validation or design iteration can be done without dwindling down on productivity as the whole process is automated.

Simply put, you can allow the machine to run overnight to produce the jig while everyone is resting while not compromising on productivity.

To learn more about industrial application for 3D printing – check out our industrial guide which is tailored made for specific industries.

I suppose most of us are pretty familiar with this – impossible triangle optical illusion.

Impossible Triangle Sketch

What about a 3D printed one?

3D Printed Impossible Triangle

It’s actually curved.

Check out the side view.

Don’t mind the triangle, we were too excited to check out the optical illusion instead of cleaning it properly (it was printed in rubber-like material from Polyjet). Do you have any optical illusion stuff to share with us?

3D Printing has been flexible in many ways and of course – even in embedding IT chips. It is widely known that this technology is capable of integrating electronics into the prototype, just by pausing and inserting the chip. During our preparation for SolidWorks Innovation Day, we toyed around this similar concept, but instead of chips, we wanted to embed words within the gift.

Here Is What We Did:

File Source: Own design
Technology: Polyjet
Printer:  Objet500 Connex3
Materials: Digital Materials (Cyan, Yellow & Transparent)
Build Time:  2 hours 49 minutes

Screenshots in CAD file:

Symphony 3D Printed Gift

Noticed how it was designed to embed words inside inside the printed transparent frame?

Outcome:

Symphony 3D Printed Gift

Looks pretty cool eh? While we spin off the application onto printing a premium item, this is widely used in both engineering & medical field as for prototyping purposes as well as teaching aid. Check out this medical application by The Engineering here.

From a business perspective, the capability to do multi-material and multi-color printing cut shorts a significant amount of time and error.

1. Reduced manufacturing layer – no need to go through multiple processes for a single part.
2. Manufacturing a prototype will go through many manual process and by eliminating these processes, human error will be significantly reduced as well.

There is more to what Polyjet can do, check out our relevant posts below to find out more!

What is a fixture?

A fixture is mainly used in manufacturing industry to hold manufactured part and act as a support device to secure position in a specific location or orientation. The use of fixture is widely adopted by manufacturers as it improves the productivity by streamlining operation and quick transition from part to part.

How jig & fixture is done traditionally?

In contrast with mass production concept, a manufacturer will only need a few jigs & fixtures typically 5 – 100 pieces depending on their assembly line. These are normally manufactured via subtractive manufacturing method in metal / aluminium, and easily take 3 – 6 months time along with the master mould production.

Imagine a manufacturer with different projects – they would require a different fixture as the product differs. This translates into high overhead / inventory cost for keeping a short term use fixture.

Assembly Line Example

 This is where 3D printing comes in.

3D printing leverage on few points to tackle the current manufacturing problem:

• Print on demand. This not only allow you to significantly cut short on production time, it also allows you to streamline your operation at a quicker pace.
• Lesser cost. Optimize your fixture cost by printing it in a tough material but at a cheaper cost.
• Custom design. Some fixtures require custom novel design which traditional manufacturing has limitations, this is where 3D printing shines.

Assembly Line With Fixture

Here is what we did for our customer recently:

File Source: Client
Technology:  FDM
Printer:  Idea Series – uPrint SE
Materials: ABS Black & ABS White
Build Time:  3 hours 30 minutes

Screenshots prior printing:

Outcome:

Implications:

• This was printed in mere 3 hours and 30 minutes – shortened the production time by a significant gap.
• This allows manufacturers to better streamline their current operations without fuss.
• More importantly, this flexibility provides a significant competitive advantage to manufacturers as they have shorter turn around time!