From 8 weeks to 1 week: how East/West Industries replaced a metal tool with 3D printing

Additive manufacturing is now increasingly penetrating into areas that were traditionally the domain of metalworking. East/West Industries, an American manufacturer of aerospace components, has been able to replace metal forming tools with 3D printing - and thus significantly reduce production time and costs.

Stable supplier to the aerospace industry

East/West Industries is an established manufacturer in the aerospace industry, founded in 1968. The company focuses on the development and manufacture of seats and safety systems for aircrew. Its customers include major OEMs such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky.

Critical situation in production: broken tool and running deadlines

The company was facing a critical situation in the production of sheet metal parts - a damaged forming die was discovered just before the start of an order. The internal machining capacity was already fully utilised with the production of serial parts and the production of a new tool would have to be outsourced.

This would have meant not only additional costs, but above all a significant risk of delayed delivery to the customer. In addition, the standard production of a new tool from tool steel would involve both the purchase of material and the time-consuming machining of complex geometries.

Smart solution: 3D printing instead of machining

The company decided to leverage its in-house additive manufacturing capabilities and deployed a Stratasys Fortus 450mc industrial 3D printer. This is normally used to produce prototypes, jigs or assembly tools, but in this case it was used to produce a full-scale forming tool.

The key material was FDM Nylon 12CF - a carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite that offers high stiffness, strength and dimensional stability. These properties also make it suitable for applications where it can replace metal components in certain cases.

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology has made it possible to produce a tool with complex geometry without the limitations typical of machining, directly from digital data without the need for an additional tooling process.

Measurable results: time and cost savings

The 3D printed tool met all the strength and functionality requirements and was successfully deployed in production. The major benefits were clearly measurable:

• reduction in production time from approximately 8 weeks to less than 1 week (-87%),
• reduction in cost from approximately $5,000 to $1,000 (-80%),
• elimination of the need to outsource tool production.

In addition, thanks to additive manufacturing, geometry complexity was not a limiting factor, which greatly simplified the process.

Insight from practice: we are also dealing with similar situations in the Czech Republic

According to Matyáš Chaloupka, who has long been involved in the implementation of additive manufacturing in companies, this is not an isolated scenario:

"We encounter very similar situations in Czech manufacturing companies. A damaged or missing tool, unavailable machining capacity or pressure on delivery time - these are exactly the moments when 3D printing makes the most sense. In practice, it's often not just about replacing one part, but about changing the approach to the entire production."

Experience from the local environment confirms that additive manufacturing can effectively solve not only prototyping but also real production problems in a short time.

What to take away: 3D printing as a tool for flexible manufacturing

The case of East/West Industries shows that additive manufacturing is not only a tool for prototyping today, but is increasingly finding its way into manufacturing processes. The ability to react quickly to unexpected situations, minimize downtime and maintain production quality at the same time represents a major competitive advantage.

FDM technology combined with advanced materials such as Nylon 12CF opens up new possibilities in the production of tools, jigs and functional parts.

Perhaps you are dealing with a similar situation - or want to avoid it in the future. If you're wondering where 3D printing really makes sense in manufacturing, we'd be happy to walk you through specific applications and show you how to put it into practice effectively.