Why Additive Manufacturing for Consumer Goods Production?

Additive manufacturing (AM) opens up a new realm of possibilities for the consumer goods industry, which relies on highly detailed, often customized prototypes. With the flexibility and fast turnaround times enabled by additive, consumer goods companies can iterate intricate prints faster, more cost-efficiently, and with less material waste. The ability of photopolymer, powder bed, and material jetting print technologies to turn a product concept into a prototype in record time is exactly why additive has already proven so transformative for this industry, and is only predicted to scale.

While MJF/SLS, PolyJet, FDM, and SLA/DLP/Carbon DLS™ technologies are popularized in consumer goods for their aptitude to consistently and rapidly produce fine feature details, each method faces post-printing bottlenecks that slow down lead times with messy, cumbersome, and sometimes hazardous processes.

We’re Unleashing the Full Potential of Consumer Goods Additive Manufacturing

PostProcess Technologies is the internationally trusted leader and pioneer of automated post-printing. Using patented and patent-pending approaches, PostProcess solutions combine proprietary software, hardware, and exclusive chemistry to effectively overcome the post-printing bottleneck and enable complete end-to-end digitalization in additive manufacturing for consumer goods.

AM Post-Printing for Consumer Goods

PolyJet Support Removal

Thanks to its propensity for prototyping realism and its ability to print parts of multiple colors and materials in the same build, PolyJet printing is ideal for the consumer products industry. While most support removal solutions can damage delicate PolyJet parts, PostProcess solutions use software intelligence to avoid warpage and breakage, empowering users to print more difficult part geometries without sacrificing lead times. In fact, PostProcess solutions have been proven to increase PolyJet printing throughput by over 30% compared to traditional manual water blasting.

FDM Support Removal

As FDM offers a wide range of thermoplastic and high-performance materials in various colors, it is popular in functional prototyping and manufacturing tools within the consumer product industry. While most traditional FDM support removal solutions significantly increase lead times with long cycle times and extended drying times, PostProcess Volumetric Velocity Dispersion (VVD) solutions use software intelligence and wide part chamber envelopes to effectively post-print large parts and large batch sizes, and reduce support removal processing times by over 50% (compared to submersible tank systems).

Polymer Depowdering

Though powder bed printing is acclaimed for its ability to print strong thermoplastic consumer prototypes and parts, powder particles can be hazardous to technicians, and achieving the ideal Rate of Removal (RoR) for the final layer of powder can be time-consuming and laborious. PostProcess’s surface finishing and powder removal technologies are developed to fully leverage the production capabilities of powder bed printers. The software controls help to ensure consistent finishing for parts of all shapes and sizes, and the enclosed solution keeps powder contained.

Resin Removal
Chemical hazards are especially notorious in traditional resin removal processes. PostProcess’s automated resin removal solutions feature a proprietary, user-friendly detergent that can finish 5x as many parts as IPA before reaching saturation, while maintaining the high print resolution that this technology is known for. These solutions have been proven to enable safer, faster, and more sustainable resin-based workflows.