ADDITIVE

MANUFACTURING:
Five qualities your AM supplier must have

How to find
an additive
manufacturing
provider you
can trust
BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Additive manufacturing (AM) has come a long way over

the last 15 years. Thanks to extensive experimentation
by the industry’s early pioneers, dramatic technological
advancements and a surge in market consolidation, today’s
additive manufacturing marketplace offers companies an
unprecedented ability to reimagine their products in new
and innovative ways.

Now, it’s possible to design to the strengths of AM technology rather than to the
constraints of your materials. Instead of carving away a piece of metal, you can
start with a clean piece of paper, veer away from traditional design rules and
build with your end goals in mind. This new design mindset can, in turn, help
you pivot towards the factory of the future—and move toward more sustainable
manufacturing practices. For instance, it may be possible to cut down on
material thickness by designing for the product’s actual vibrational pressures or
thermal loads, improving environmental outcomes. Additionally, by consolidating
parts, AM can help reduce points of failure and cut down on manufacturing
costs. Similarly, it makes customization easier and more affordable—and makes
an on-demand supply chain at the point of production feasible.

Despite these significant advancements, however, the industry is, in many

ways, still in its infancy. As with all nascent sectors, that means AM can be
somewhat like the Wild West. While larger players are swiftly taking over the
space, even those with the latest technologies don’t necessarily have the
required skill sets and expertise to build quality parts that are in line with your
industry’s regulations.

So how do you ensure your supplier can deliver the solutions you need
to move your business forward?

Here are five

key things to
look for.

B
BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

NUMBER ONE

A PROVEN TRACK RECORD

Regardless of what industry you work in, whether it’s mission-critical or quality- The more detailed
sensitive (e.g., aerospace, automotive, technology), you can’t afford to work with their answers, the
an AM supplier prone to manufacturing mistakes or low-quality products. That’s better your chances
why it’s worth considering their track record. of finding a supplier
that puts quality first
Ideally, you want to identify a supplier that has extensive experience working in all that they do.
with industrial applications in AM, developing intelligent solutions and delivering
quality products—every single time.

While you may not easily uncover information about a potential supplier’s habit
of delayed deliveries, or stories about when their products failed at inopportune
times, you can gain clues into their past performance by asking them questions
such as these:

What types of materials do you work with?

What types of performance do you get out of those materials?

How do you ensure quality?

What in-house processes do you have in place to protect your

product quality in a vertical manner?

Who are your customers and partners?

What standards and certifications do you have?

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BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

NUMBER TWO

TECHNOLOGY AGNOSTICISM
The best AM partners ask a lot of questions about your business right out of the The aim of any good
gate—because they’re striving to truly understand the business problem you’re partner should be
trying to solve, so they can find the right technology solution to help you do it. to apply the right
technology, with the
Armed with an understanding of your entire product life cycle—from design right materials and
and engineering to commercial production—a good partner will be better the right downstream
equipped to determine the best technology and processes to get the job done. approach.
Sometimes the solution will be AM, but a good provider will also let you know
when traditional manufacturing methods make more sense. In an ideal world,
they’ll have the capacity to go beyond AM and offer the right manufacturing
methods for your particular business goals.

Ultimately, the aim of any good partner should be to apply the right technology,
with the right materials and the right downstream approach to help you achieve
a profitable real-world solution.

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BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

NUMBER THREE

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
For AM materials to meet your industry’s regulatory potential AM partner, ask if they can work with the
standards, it’s not enough for a supplier to offer following technologies:
cutting-edge technology. They must be able to
prove they have the know-how and expertise to Laser–powder bed fusion (L-PBF/SLM)
yield a certain level of material performance.
Electron beam additive manufacturing
If you have a specific part in mind—made out of a (EBAM) – wire deposition
specific material—ask them about their experience
in this area. How often have they worked with your Electron beam powder bed fusion
material of choice and what type of performance (EBM/EB-PBF)
did they yield?
High speed extrusion (HSE)
Also consider asking what types of machines
they have on site, and what materials they
run on that machinery. If they’re willing to run
Fused deposition modeling (FDM)
aluminum on a machine that’s also used for
nickel alloy, for instance, they’ll almost certainly Directed energy deposition (DED)
run into contamination issues. Ideally, a good
supplier should be able to specify which grades Selective laser sintering (SLS)
of materials and applications are run on their
different machines—and they should have a wide
variety of AM technologies to meet the needs of
many different applications. When identifying a

Left: RF Waveguide
Middle: Manifold
Right: Aircraft bracket

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BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

NUMBER FOUR

END-TO-END OFFERINGS
To determine if a supplier is truly committed to AM, you simply have to ask You’d like them to
if they offer in-house machining and post-processing services. If they do, offer as many of the
this means they’re invested in being an end-to-end AM supplier—and you’ll following services
likely save time and money down the road, as they won’t have to rely on and capabilities
third parties to get the job done. as possible.

Specifically, you’d like them to offer as many of the following services and
capabilities as possible:

Precision CNC machining Powder characterization

Heat treatment Metallography

Hot isostatic press Chemical analysis

CMM Tensile testing

Laser scanning Hardness testing

CT scanning Material expertise

SEM

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BURLOAK TECHNOLOGIES ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
NUMBER FIVE
SCALABILITY
When you use AM to build a prototype, you’re
essentially testing a product’s utility—and, as such,
you don’t have to worry too much about external
factors. Once you decided to move forward and
use AM to build functional parts, however, the
game changes.
Suddenly, you need to think about the costs of
using AM on a larger scale. Not only do you have
to factor in the cost of materials and the overall
manufacturing process, but you have to consider
all the steps involved in bringing it to market—
including supply chain logistics.
If you manufacture your product in one city but
demand spikes in another, can your AM supplier
This page: Heat exchanger
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accommodate that? When using traditional
manufacturing techniques, it can be relatively
easy to scale up—but when using AM, you have
to make sure all the materials and recipes are
where you need them to be. Machines must
not only be in the right manufacturing regions,
but they must be properly calibrated, the tools
inspected, the factories certified and the materials
delivered on time.
For these reasons, it’s important to ask your
AM supplier how they can help you bring your
prototype to market. A good one should have the
infrastructure in place to scale on a global level,
across multiple sites, without compromising the
quality of their performance.
A TRUSTWORTHY PARTNER IS
WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD
Navigating the swiftly-evolving
AM market can be challenging, to
say the least. When searching for
an external AM partner to support
your organization’s needs, it’s
consequently critical to get to know
a potential contender well before
signing on the dotted line.
By digging deep and asking questions to uncover
their prior track record, ability to see the big picture,
approach to technology, industry experience and
their capacity to scale, you’ll gain invaluable insight
into who you might be working with—and whether
their approach and skill sets align with your needs.
To learn more about Burloak
Technologies, contact us.
WWW.BURLOAKTECH.COM
As one of the world’s earliest AM pioneers, Burloak
Technologies has seen it all in the AM space.
Working collaboratively with our customers, we
marry our design know-how with our customers’
in-depth product knowledge to jointly create better
designs and ideal applications. We’ve worked with
some of AM’s biggest adopters—as well as many
others across a wide range of industries. And, like
the industry, we’re continually evolving.
Whether you’re looking to cut down on material
and labor costs, build stronger and more reliable
components, streamline your supply chain,
reduce raw material consumption, shorten your
development cycle—or something else entirely—
our experienced team has what it takes to take
your business into the future.