Innovating Sustainability in Additive Manufacturing – Dave Krzeminski, EOS

This is Techstrong tv. Hello and welcome to Techstrong tv. I'm Bonnie Schneider, and today we're diving into the world of additive manufacturing and sustainability.

Joining me now is Dave Kaminsky, a senior Additive Minds consultant at E O S A leader in industrial three printing. Dave is here to share insights about a groundbreaking new tool that e o s has developed to calculate r o I for various sustainability initiatives. Dave, it's great to have you here.

Hi, Bonnie. Thanks for having me. Sure.

Can you tell us more about your background and the work that you're doing at E O ss? Sure. Uh, so I have a very engineering and tech background.

Uh, I've been with E O Ss for about four years, uh, was in, um, in additive, uh, a few years prior. And I have worked for, uh, military companies, medical companies. Uh, I have a PhD in, uh, polymer science and engineering.

Um, and have just always had an interest in how, uh, the materials we use influence, uh, uh, the parts that we make. And we, um, sort of interact with, um, my role specifically with E O ss. Um, I'm part of our Additive Minds team, which is our, uh, collection of engineers, consultants, and trainers, uh, to provide, um, applied engineering insight, uh, and enable our customers to onboard and start using our technologies.

That's great. Well, additive manufacturing is gaining traction for its potential environmental benefits. So how does your new tool help manufacturers assess the cost per part and carbon footprint providing a comprehensive view of the sustainability impact?

Yeah, certainly. So, um, there are many components that go into, uh, sort of evaluating our technology and boiling down to what the, the cost per part can be. And, uh, many of those concepts can be even brand new for any organization or customer.

So we try to compile all of that into a web-based tool, uh, that they can access and use and quickly, um, change variables to understand, uh, and make more kind of database, uh, choices for them. And that includes both our polymer and our metal technologies. And, uh, one can imagine that when trying to decide between, uh, different materials that they could use, deciding between different printing platforms.

So we have small scale systems, larger scale systems, um, and even just some of the strategies that come along with trying to print apart. So, you know, do you add certain features? Uh, some things, uh, such as a support structure, which can be needed to build a part but isn't part of, uh, the end part itself, uh, can involve extra material, extra things to build so we can play with those different variables and then quickly understand, uh, what kind of cost targets, uh, or cost numbers that, that those could be influencing, understandably.

Now, uh, the sustainability perspective, uh, is building, uh, and is part of a, uh, major decision for many organizations regarding, uh, do we jump into an application with additive? Do we onboard the technology? Uh, we've listened to our customers regarding that.

And so we have taken, uh, and built upon the back of this, uh, web-based cost calculator, um, some of the sustainability calculations, uh, and, um, inputs so that it easily integrates now into that, uh, workflow. So, for example, uh, we've taken the time to evaluate, uh, the carbon footprint of producing some of our materials that go into using our systems as well as using them in terms of how much, uh, e sort of, uh, power is used, uh, to run a build, kind of distilling that back into, um, kilowatt hours, for example. And so when you run an evaluation now of a part and get a a a, a cost, uh, target or a cost estimate, you can also then leverage that data you've already put into the tool to now understand what kind of, um, c o two footprint or carbon footprint can you, um, an anticipate for the use of that.

And what's also great is we've created the tool such that you can quickly change between different inputs. So take a material, for example, you've selected one standard material, we offer more carbon reduced or climate neutral materials. You can quickly, uh, switch to that kind of material and then see what that reduction in c o two is.

And one of the really neat parts at the very end of all this is, uh, you know, carbon taxing is becoming a topic of conversation, um, where sort of governments are thinking about implementing policies to essentially tax what your c o two output is. And now we've built that into the tool already to help guide that conversation and, and help organizations understand this is something that's coming. And so we can even start to quantify what that is.

So give people That's great. Sort of a heads up of you build this part on our technology made of everything I just said, here's what an anticipated carbon tax could be. And obviously there's a lot of things still to figure out, but it really starts that conversation and introduces that concept.

Um, sort of naturally The concept of r o I calculation for sustainability initiatives is intriguing. Um, can you walk us through a practical example of how the cost and carbon cal calculator works and how it can help make informed decisions? Sure.

So we have a recent, uh, third party study using, uh, three D printed eyewear, um, through a, uh, German eyewear company and, uh, a German institute where we were looking at both comparing, uh, the cost, um, of producing eyewear. So comparing traditionally made eyewear and additively manufactured eyewear, and then also the, um, sustainability components that went into that. So the raw materials that were used, uh, the transportation regarding those different kind materials, as well as just, uh, the full process, including other features such as, uh, de powdering, smoothing, coloring, kind of the things that go into the final touches.

And so we were able to demonstrate, uh, and I think it was somewhat known, but able to quantify both what the cost savings could be, uh, especially if you start to compare a more custom or personalized set of, um, sort of eyewear. And some of those things go into other measures such as lead times, uh, and supply chain metrics that can be specific to, uh, a situation or an organization. Um, and additionally we found, uh, with doing the, uh, lifecycle assessment, we saw a, uh, reduction in c o two output, um, lower by about 50 to 60% using additively manufactured, uh, means.

And, uh, I think for us, this was even more than we, um, were, uh, thinking could happen. You know, we sort of, we didn't have, uh, you know, we were also ready to learn that if we were higher, where could we make better kind of adjustments? So for us, it was really exciting to see that we were in fact, lower.

And within that we were able al also able to break down where, where are the bigger, uh, contributors to that c o two footprint. So now it gives us an opportunity to say, if we circle back and want to continue that kind of, uh, improvement, what, which areas should we focus on? So should it be a better material, should it be a more, um, sort of sort of e efficient, uh, printer?

So that's a really neat also output that we kind of, uh, didn't anticipate, but now really just continues that conversation for us. What are the challenges manufacturers face when integrating sustainability into their processes? Sure.

Um, so I think one is in general, where do we start, right? So when you look at an an existing process, there's so many decision factors, so many different, uh, technical operation components. Um, and so do you know, do you look at, uh, supply chain features?

Do you look at, um, how your own organization is operating, uh, to make that? And so what I kind of, uh, what what we try to do is it can be a lot to onboard or start to kind of change this, this thought process. So we try to kind of use the metaphor of pick some low hanging fruit so we can just instill, uh, the mindset and some of the best practice and, um, understand how these types of decisions can be made, um, how to get, or sort of organizations understanding what, what data to look for.

Certainly it can be hard to make any change, right? Even from us personally, or it can be hard to stop driving your car to work and instead take the bike or take the bus, right? So some of these things you have to acknowledge, it's not just simply, um, replacing one thing for another, but there's other, um, things that can be, uh, a part of that and learning, uh, how your organization will, um, sort of adapt.

And that's where we like to work with them. Um, and again, this tool is just one component of that allows them to quantify that. Um, but also from our background, uh, and what we've implemented with other organizations, we can give them some guidance, uh, make them an anticipate, things that we've seen.

I think it just kind of lowers any of that, uh, initial challenge or just, um, bridge those conversations so that they can become an ambassador themselves and their organization to, to lead that conversation. And what are the trends that you foresee in the convergence of additive manufacturing and sustainability? Sure.

Um, so I think some trends are, uh, maybe already happening. So you're seeing, uh, in the consumer good space, right? You're seeing more personalized, um, products and, uh, the ability to print those, uh, locally, print those on, on kind of demand.

So instead of the traditional, uh, process of building up large order quantities, trying to predict what the market will want, distribute those around, uh, the globe, now you can be a little more reactive, a little more agile, um, you can also make smaller quantities and push them out faster. So, um, in that regard, I think you can, uh, help minimize those. Um, sometimes supply chain challenges, inventory managing challenges, um, and you know, and same could be said in the medical space, uh, you're seeing more, uh, custom implants are now additively manufactured implants, same opportunity.

There is, uh, as we're seeing with global health challenges, right? Hospitals and that are suddenly making certain surgeries available or there's challenges with, with covid and such, they're not. And so hospitals and, uh, the manufacturers pro providing those kind of devices now can react faster because they have a means of manufacturer where you can produce that product, uh, with shorter lead time.

So instead of, again, needing 12, 18 months to anticipate where we're gonna be and what we're gonna need, uh, you can reduce those times down and be much more agile and, um, kind of flexible. Any, uh, final tips for our viewers on Techstrong tv? Um, yeah, I think, uh, hopefully additive is becoming, uh, more of a common, uh, topic and, and sort of understanding.

I'd say if there are any questions, uh, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself. Uh, my role here is to work with anyone who's from a expert in the technology or brand new. Um, and I think the, there's, there's a lot to learn.

Um, and so don't feel like you have to have all of the sort of answers. That's what we're here for. Um, and, um, any, any kind of idea could be, uh, the, the spawn or the start of, uh, of the next new kind of, uh, trend.

So that Sounds great. Well, thank you so much. Dave Kaminsky, senior Additive Minds consultant at eos.

We appreciate your insights today. Thank you. All right, well stay with us on Techstrong tv.

We'll have a lot more news coming up.