Velo3D, a leading metal additive manufacturing technology company for mission-critical parts, , announced that Lockheed Martin, an American corporation with interests in aerospace, arms, and defence, among other things, has chosen Velo3D's end-to-end additive manufacturing solution for its Additive Design & Manufacturing Center. This facility tests new additive manufacturing technologies in preparation for production deployments in Lockheed Martin's Space division.
Velo3D was chosen for its advanced quality assurance capabilities enabled by its Assure software, which allows for layer-by-layer traceability of machine health, part integrity, and build reporting.
Velo3D provided Lockheed Martin with an end-to-end additive manufacturing solution that included a Sapphire printer, Velo3D's Flow print preparation software, Assure quality assurance and control software, and its underlying Intelligent Fusion manufacturing process, which optimises the additive manufacturing process by combining process simulation, geometry-based detection, and build process monitoring during print execution.
Customers can be confident that mission-critical parts printed using Velo3D's additive manufacturing technology will retain design intent thanks to this end-to-end additive manufacturing solution. It also allows customers to produce identical parts on any Velo3D Sapphire printer, so as production needs grow, customers can simply add additional printers to their production facilities anywhere in the world or use Velo3D’s network of contract manufacturers.
According to Benny Buller, Velo3D CEO and Founder, “The past few years have uncovered weaknesses in the global supply chain, which is causing many companies to evaluate new technologies to feed production of their mission-critical parts and hardware, and distribute their manufacturing processes. An additive manufacturing solution that can print identical parts anywhere you have a printer can not only help solve some very specific, complex challenges in our global supply chain, it can also lower production costs and lead times, and enable the manufacturing of parts in closer proximity to where they are needed.”
Velo3D customers benefit from higher productivity and lower production costs thanks to the company's latest Sapphire XC system. It also allows for the printing of parts 600 mm in diameter and up to 550 mm in height, which is 500% larger than the previous Sapphire system.
