The Hybrid Metal 3D Printer – Innovation in Mold Industry
Yuto Matsuura
Making a prototype part with a 3D printer. Read full article HERE.
No, that’s not what I meant. The 3D printer builds a practical mold itself with one button. We have been developing, building, and selling this machine (the LUMEX) for 20+ years.
Matsuura Machinery Corporation which I work at is a machining center builder founded in 1935, based in Fukui, Japan. Why on earth does Matsuura build metal 3D printers? This goes back to the era of the second generation of the president, Masanori Matsuura.
Everything started from here: MOLD
When Matsuura was thoroughly pursuing high-speed and high-precision machining in the world of machining centers, Matsushita Electric, the major electronic manufacturer currently known as Panasonic, contacted Matsuura. In the 1990s, Matsushita was working on a new mold manufacturing method using laser technologies. The purpose of this project was to shorten the lead time to bring their new products to the market.
A mold is a fundamental tool for manufacturing. One flaw in mold quality is applied to every single part produced with it. If a mold breaks down, the whole production could stop for it. A high-quality mold is essential and always in demand. Even though these challenges still exist now, many mold manufacturers rely heavily on experienced engineers and artisans’ unique skill sets. Furthermore, mold manufacturing comes with multiple processes and many types of machinery: machining centers, grinders, EDMs, wire EDMs, and so on. Consequently, it generally takes months to complete a set of molds for mass production. If the product development cycle is faster, the mold for the product must meet the shorter time scale.
At that time, Matsushita owned a metal 3D printer made in Germany. With this state-of-the-art equipment, they built and tested high-performance molds that had conformal cooling channels. They faced challenges when it came to mold cores which have complex structures with many slits and thin walls. Due to its complicated and burdensome manufacturing process, they could not shorten the manufacturing lead time. At the end of the day, the overall product lead time depended crucially on mold core manufacturing.
Eventually, they came up with a revolutionary manufacturing method: hybrid additive manufacturing. That means solidifying the metal powder layer using the laser, milling the surface with a spindle, and repeating these two processes per ten layers. All you need is a 3D model. You press one button, and the machine completes a mold with one process. This was an innovative additive manufacturing technology that had never existed.
With this basic idea and the patent, Matsushita tried to build in-house equipment. However, they had no experience in designing such an industrial machine. At that time, Matsuura was acknowledged for the excellence of machining centers in their machine shop. Therefore, Matsushita asked Matsuura for a consultation to design the machine.
Coincidentally, Matsuura had a big interest in laser technology. We considered accuracy consistency issues affected by tool wearing as one of the biggest challenges in subtractive manufacturing. Therefore, we were working on a research project about ablation with a short-pulse laser, believing contactless processing would bring the next innovation.
However, the project brought by Matsushita was quite different from ablation technology. Matsuura might have advantages in the high-speed spindle for milling. After all, it was a whole new world to Matsuura. ”Given it is just a consultation, it would not be a big deal.” We joined the project without a particular motive.
The visionary
Masanori Matsuura, the president at the time saw it differently. He believed this technology would create the future of the manufacturing and Matsuura business. Consequently, he said “We will make this into our new product. This will be Matsuura’s new business.”
In those days, the five-axis technology gathered people’s attention in the machine tool industry. Matsuura was about to invest all the R&D resources to complete a full lineup of five-axis machining centers that covered different work envelopes. Because no one wanted to waste any of those resources for a pipe dream, many employees tried to talk him out of starting the grandiose project. Every time this happened in the meeting, Masanori agreed to give up the idea. However, he always came back insisting “I really want to do this.” He was determined and unstoppable.
in the 1990s, laser technology was remarkable, and it was said the time would come when laser tech would dominate manufacturing. This gave a strong impression on Masanori. Since then, he has dreamed of developing laser technology in addition to the machining center product portfolio.
In December 2000, a joint research project was initiated, involving many organizations from industries, governments, and universities. Masanori himself led this project as a project leader. Matsushita was cooperative and they shared all their knowledge and experiences about the technology. Around this time, those who opposed Masanori’s idea already dedicated themselves to the R&D with pride. It did not take a half year to give the passion to the engineers. That was the power of creating something that did not exist yet. Masanori has never said a negative thing about the project, and he was always supportive of those engineers.
In 2002, the prototype machine for Matsushita, “the metal laser sintering hybrid milling machine, M-SINT” was born. In July 2003, the world’s first “metal laser sintering hybrid milling machine, M-PHOTON 25C” came out in the market. In those days, the words “3D printer” did not exist yet.
Masanori Matsuura was no doubt a visionary. For instance, the MAM72 series is Matsuura’s flagship five-axis model. This was developed in the early 1990s when the Japanese government promoted a five-day workweek system – Japanese people used to work on weekends at that time. Masanori got this idea from the shift in society.
The time will come when people must stay home although they need to work on Saturday and Sunday. The world will need a machine that can run unattended for weekends. We need a machine that can run for 72 consecutive hours.
The MAM72 series was based on Masanori’s idea. The idea was a five-axis machine with a large capacity tool magazine handling up to a few hundred tools and a multi-pallet system with several dozen pallets. This was out of proportion from the market point of view. At that time, the machines were not paid attention in the market due to the extraordinary initial costs and the impression of being hard to use. However, as time went on, the concept became widely accepted. Later, the market recognition was surely established.
Masanori relinquished his title of president in 2007, and Katsu Matsuura (his son and the current president) took up the position. In 2014, Masanori passed away. I joined Matsuura in 2018, and I was not able to see my grandfather working in the family business.
The following are Masanori’s comments regarding the metal laser sintering hybrid milling machine business when he took an interview with a local newspaper in 2003.
It has been a while since China was regarded as ”the factory of the world” and “the largest market in the 21st century.” Their abundant workforce and sophisticated IT technology integration almost made it possible to achieve the tremendous economic growth, that took Japan decades to achieve. We must develop something brimming with originality rather than making something directly competing against them. Trying to create what has never existed before comes with a risk. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the competition gets tough when “the wants” turn into “the needs.” This is why we dedicate ourselves to R&D foreseeing the market ten years from now. The core technologies will be these two, the linear motor and the laser. The environment in Japanese manufacturing is in a chronic bind. it’s now or never. The grim circumstances lift our development capability to the next level and create ingenuity. As long as we are one and only, we can be successful anywhere.
Seeing the light of day after ten years
Since its spectacular debut in 2003, how many twists and turns has Matsuura’s 3D printer business been through?
In 2004, Matsuura won the 33rd Japan Industrial Technology Grand Prize and the prize from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In 2007, the LUMEX Avance-25 won the 37th “Machine Design Award.” The technological advancement was acknowledged in the industry.
However, we were not successful from the business point of view. We once visited and asked a well-regarded 3D printer manufacturer to sell the LUMEX machines under their brand name – this was turned down. We were desperately trying to increase the sales, but it did not go well. The suspension of the business was on the table sometimes. Believing this development would pay off one day, we steadily worked hard and kept improving the products.
A turning point has arrived in 2013. the former US president, Barak Obama mentioned a 3D printer in State of the Union Address. This triggered a boom in additive manufacturing all over the world. This is quite obvious if you see the chart below that shows the transition of machine sales in units. In those days, we still called our product “the metal laser sintering hybrid milling machine,” not a 3D printer. Eventually, we changed the name to “the hybrid metal 3D printer” in 2014 to ride the wave in the industry.
At this point, other Japanese machine tool builders entered the 3D printer market through M&A.
A CAD/CAM is software that generates a machine program out of a 3D model. Because the hybrid additive manufacturing had not existed before, we needed a dedicated CAD/CAM for the processes on the LUMEX. Matsuura was partnered with one of the software companies in Japan to develop the CAD/CAM. It was about this time that the partner company was acquired by our competitor machine tool builder. The CAD/CAM was too essential in the hybrid process to rely on others. Taking this opportunity, Matsuura decided to develop and support the CAD/CAM system on our own.
From 2014 to 2016, we had good years and the expectation got higher. In 2014, Matsuura signed an exclusive sales contract with a well-known trading company and expanded into the US market. A few years later, we added the LUMEX division in Matsuura Europe, too. Matsuura was invited to the huge national development project led by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. To advance the business forward, we tried to apply the hybrid additive technology to not only molds but also parts that themselves can be used directly for specific use in aerospace, medical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and so on.
However, the outcome was contrary to expectations.
The bubble burst
Do you know the marketing model called the Chasm theory? This was proposed by Geoffrey A. Moore. The model explains an adaptation of market development when a new technology is brought into the industry. The Chasm theory is based on another well-regarded one, the Innovator theory. the chasm means a “deep and wide gulf” between the initial market and the mainstream market.
Let me explain the basics of the Chasm theory briefly. Because of emerging popularity, Early adopters purchase new products. Nevertheless, this is a passing fad. As the gap between ideals and reality has become quite substantial, they lose the sales momentum intensely. Consequently, products that cross the chasm will only become widespread in the industry. The others that cannot will be forced to be out of the market.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the metal 3D printer industry has been right in the Chasm in the past ten years. We experienced a catastrophic drop in the sales in the LUMEX sales, too.
The metal 3D printer industry has always been an investment target. Several manufacturers have conducted large-scale development with capital money funded by investors. That looked vibrant to everyone’s eyes. However, it usually turned out nobody made a profit if you looked at their IR information. We saw anticipated newcomers who joined this game with their spectacular technology. A few years ago, they had a gigantic booth in the exhibition and made extensive marketing. A year later, 20% of the employees were laid off, and the booth scale got much smaller. In the next year, they announced to leave the EU market. Even the mighty eventually fall. As the theory says, the Chasm got them.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
In those days, the market was not well-established. In addition, the technology was still crude. Why did Matsuura take a leap of faith in the 3D printer business? “Of course, Masanori’s passion was the main reason. However, as a company culture, we always try to develop something new and something unique as long as the risk does not jeopardize the entire business,” said Katsu Matsuura.
Matsuura is no doubt a development-oriented machine builder. We always try to get a step ahead of others developing machines that never existed before. Yes, this is our cooperate culture. However, now, I fully understand that culture is always shaped by a person and maintained by a person. A great example is Masanori. Carrying on his dream and passion, the previous director was the embodiment of this culture. He had strong leadership, and he was a man of action. He pulled the engineering team together, traveled on foot for sales, planned the next move, fought against opposition in the company, and chased the dream.
Matsuura is a family business located in a remote country place in Fukui, Japan. We might live in a different world from others where venture capitalists are involved. Yet, we cannot do whatever we want. We still have shareholders and financial institutes we report to. I personally have no idea whether we were pressured by them, but we discussed downsizing and getting out of the business for that reason many times. The LUMEX business came with blood, sweat, and tears. Especially, I witnessed tears a few times.
In March 2021, the director stepped down for a generation shift. It was no way that he gave up the dream halfway easily. It was a big decision considering the entire Matsuura business. Looking back, Matsuura’s culture, “we always develop something new despite the risk,” was in danger.
No matter what it takes, we shall develop something that never existed.
No matter what it takes, we shall spread those into the society.
There was nobody who pulled everyone together towards one goal. A driving force in the organization was gone.
With our backs against the wall
Our hybrid 3D printer business was lack of strong leadership. Not long after the new Matsuura management team was established, the LUMEX business policy was under the knife all too easily. “Let’s save the resources for sales and marketing and focus our development on the area in which we can win. We will never spend any more resources unless we achieve the development target.” At that time, I was a new director in charge of sales and engineering. I thought I could not help it. “Matsuura has been somehow reckless. It might be a good time to cool ourselves down. Anyway, it is a corporate decision and I am here to follow that.”
According to the revised LUMEX business policy, we reorganized the sales and engineering team, and we set a development target that was extremely challenging to achieve. “If it doesn’t work, we will have to accept things as they are.” I am sure that the engineers felt this way.
Getting back to the basics, our target was the mold market. We threw away a grandiose vision and set a focus on only the mold market, where we believed the hybrid metal 3D printers would win. We knew the market scale in the aerospace and space industry was way larger. Consequently, we made up our minds. As a result, we only took the projects that involved molds turning down any other cases.
Our target was to enhance our machine capabilities for specifically mold applications. Our target was precision and accuracy. We have done all the R&D exhaustively for better accuracy.
Going through a lot of turns and twists in a few years, we eventually accomplished the goal. To be honest, the progress was not as good as we wished. I thought doomsday finally might come. It turned out that we had a great outcome. After all of the business policy change, reorganization, and achieving the R&D goal, I finally thought “This will change everything.”
However, we did not move forward at all from the point of view of sales. The Engineering division was so carefree that they still planned further development. Although we asked how we could have a budget for sales and marketing and reorganize the business, we could not get a clear answer. No matter what happened, all inquiries went to the Engineering division. They had no clue or resources to manage sales activity and profitability. Yet, they were under severe pressure to prove the LUMEX business was promising.
“Do something! Make it work! Otherwise, we don’t want to change anything!”
I thought the business might fail in the end if we did nothing. Can we just sit and watch the dream end up in smoke? Without any full commitment? No way!
Carrying on
I proposed the project to lead the LUMEX business in which I take the initiative.
All the information, including cost, price, production capacity, inventory, after-service, development plan, and margin finally gathered in one place. There were a lot of new findings that no one was aware of. I just made a target and a plan. All we need is to commit to this.
Even though I listed all the words trying to impress the readers, I was the one who did nothing for the business. Succeeding the director position, I had never been involved in the LUMEX business. I was once directly asked to lead the LUMEX business, but I did not do anything. Spending the minimum amount of resources that no one complained about, I just hoped for the best from a distance.
Experiencing a few years in running the Matsuura business from the director position made me think about the role of management. There are certain things that no one but the management can do. We have four hundred employees, duties and responsibilities in each division are established, and the business is steady to some degree. Everyone hesitates to change and wants to play it safe. In this environment, it is extremely difficult to make cross-departmental actions for one person in one division. The only possible way is for someone in a position like me to take the initiative.
The big dream that the Matsuura 2nd started. The director who carried on the will. Whether the dream will end up with success or failure. I will make the decision anyway. At least, we must give it our best shot. Otherwise, who are we?
Our new strategy
OK, what are we going to do?
We discussed this with many people including global group companies. We need to find out the best way to promote the LUMEX machines by looking at the latest machine capabilities, market situations, and available resources.
The conclusion: We are not known in the market!
No wonder. We limited our spendings for many years. Matsuura has been selling the LUMEX for 20+ years. However, did you know there was a hybrid metal 3D printer in the market until you read this article?
At every exhibition we joined, we always met people who said “I have never seen this kind of technology.” This is very common globally. We are confident in our solutions. However, we managed to look for and chase those chances with limited activities.
Building recognition of Matsuura’s name. This is what I really worked on during the COVID through online promotion. In my experience, a development-oriented company like Matsuura often underestimates the power of marketing. Their idea is “If we show them to the public, it just raises the risk of being copied. As long as our products are good, we can sell them eventually.” This idea might have worked in the past. Nowadays, we need to be known in the market utilizing all the digital methods. Otherwise, we sink into obscurity.
We are proud of our engineers who always cherish the idea, “No matter what it takes, we shall develop something that never existed.” With another driving force, “No matter what it takes, we shall spread those into the society,” I think we can turn this around.
We increase our recognition in the mold industry globally. We commit to marketing. We do not run after chances. Customers come to us for the solutions. This is what we want to accomplish. This is why we are sending the messages actively.
Let’s go back to the marketing theory: the Chasm theory. I believe the whole metal 3D printer industry is right in the middle of crossing the chasm. In the book, the author states the practical strategies to make it happen. A few examples are as below.
- Secure the beachhead
- Make it easy to compare to other options
- Create the “whole product”
- Encourage word-of-mouth
1) You should not target a too big market in the first place. You focus on a target market that is big enough to matter and small enough to win. Most importantly, pick a market where our solution surely satisfies the needs of the customers. Our target is the mold market. All clear!
2)We have to make ourselves comparable in a way that highlights the ease of use against others. It is very simple to say our user interface is designed to be easy to use. Let me give you another example. We offer the LUMEX user guidebook for every owner. The guidebook is not all about how to use the 3D printer and troubleshooting. We mainly explain the guidance for effective AM mold design, know-how about heat treatments, and required post processes for molds. We put many years of knowledge, experience, and test data into this guidebook. Please see some examples below.
3) The whole product fulfills not just the “Must-have” needs but also other needs to complete other needs. We need to have a product portfolio of the core products and complimentary products to realize what they want to do 100%. When I read this, it is hard to think of a good example, but it all makes sense in the case of the LUMEX. A great example is our LUMEX CAD/CAM system. We keep updating the software versions in-house regularly for better ease of use. In addition, we always offer training, consulting, powder, cutting tools, holders, and maintenance equipment as a packaged solution.
4) The most important thing to cross the chasm is the word-of-mouth. The reputation and others’ success stories open the doors of the conservatives, and there is no other way. What do we do about it? Let me show you our case studies in the next chapter.
These are our achievements (updated on Dec 11th, 2024)
What a mold! Time & cost saving, Quality & Efficiency improvement
This case study is one of the LUMEX users in Europe. The mold in the video is an injection mold for an automobile fuse box. This mold is used in production. Now, they are replacing other conventional molds with AM molds, running their LUMEX Avance-25 24/7.
This mold originally consisted of 80+ different parts. They procured the materials, manufactured the EDM electrodes, completed all the processes for every part, and assembled them all together into a mold with manual adjustment. The LUMEX consolidated 80+ separated mold parts into 10. The mold in the video is the largest part. This contributed to the significant time and cost savings.
It took 234 hours to build this part. It might sound like a ridiculous amount of printing hours. However, in other words, you get your hands on this mold in 10 days. You press the button, and no one comes near it. This was revolutionary compared to conventional manufacturing. The fuse box plastic material (PA6-GF30) contains 30% of glass fibers. Therefore, they did an aging treatment to increase hardness. The density that the LUMEX can achieve is quite high, and the hardness of Maraging powder material is increased at a relatively low temperature (485℃/905°F). You do not need a heat treatment that likely causes dimensional change due to the high temperature. This is the point. The rest is sandblasting to smooth the surface and light milling the sides and the back face to fit it in an injection molding machine.
As a result, they achieved the following.
- 46% reduction in labor hours by eliminating all the processes for EDM
- 87% reduction in parts count thanks to consolidation
- 12% reduction in injection cycle time thanks to the conformal cooling channels
- Shortening mold manufacturing lead time by 2 weeks
- Saving 40,000$ per a set of mold core and cavity
How come the LUMEX is that effective?
Please watch the embedded video below.
The first one you see in the video is a mold you can get out of a normal PBF 3D printer. The surface is rough. Without the EDM process, you can never use this mold for anything. Of course, it has conformal cooling inside and a gas-permeable porous structure. However, it is more cost-effective and time-saving to manufacture separated pieces and assemble them. This is why you could not fully utilize additive design benefits. This is one of the bottlenecks that a normal 3D printer has.
The second one you see is the same design mold built using the LUMEX hybrid method. Because of the milling capabilities on the LUMEX, it comes out of the machine with this smooth surface. This eliminates the EDM process and minimizes the need for the post-process. As a result, you can consolidate more molds into one. It is easier to design a large piece of mold that has 3D cooling channels going everywhere inside and a porous structure in a critical area. You have not only cost-saving, labor-saving, and time-saving benefits in mold manufacturing, but also you can have benefits when you mold parts: improved quality and shorter injection cycle time.
Quantum leap in dimensional accuracy
Earlier, I stated that our development target was accuracy and precision. Please let me introduce one of the achievements in this area to you. The biggest enemy in AM mold manufacturing is a warpage caused by temperature differences. Focusing our R&D on specific parameters related to the table heater, laser conditions, and milling path, now we can control the warpage. When it comes to a mold, we can never sacrifice the flatness of a parting line and a base plate even for all the AM benefits. This technique can solve the particular issue in AM mold manufacturing. The video below looks nothing special to most people, but it may be WOW to those who have experienced mold manufacturing with AM technology. If you know about Matsuura as a machine tool builder, you know how we achieve flatness with hand scraping. This demonstrates the flatness of 3D-printed mold on the scraped table. The workpiece on the right is built using the technique recently developed, and the flatness is significantly improved. We have spent many years investigating this unpretentious technique despite all the hype in the additive manufacturing world, and we know this is critical in the mold industry.
Don’t be afraid and think simple
You might think you need to be an expert or a genius to design such a sophisticated mold from scratch or it takes a lot of courage and risks to consolidate a lot of pieces into one and print it. We always examine if we can utilize an existing simple part and build something on top of that. In many cases, the base plate is manufactured in conventional methods. For instance, you can have simple inlet/outlet holes for cooling channels. We build high-added-value structures on the top surface, and we turn them into a mold. We call this a hybrid mold and, we always recommend this application. The hybrid mold has two advantages. You can minimize warpage and shorten lead time.
If you use a normal metal 3D printer, the tricky part is how you can set up the work in the right position. Otherwise, the added part will be out of alignment. The LUMEX is “hybrid”, which means the machine has a milling spindle inside. Using the spindle, the machine can probe the workpiece on the table and create the right coordinate for the laser system easily. A good example is this one. We cut the sprue bush half available in the market, and we built the part on the top with a conformal cooling channel inside. This does not take a rocket scientist. Our partner company owns the patent for this sprue bush manufacturing technique, and the LUMEX owners can use it, too.
A lifesaver
One of our customers in Japan faced big trouble due to mold breaking down, and it was urgent to make the mold insert and get it back into production. They contacted Matsuura, and we built this beautiful mold insert for their automotive parts. This insert was built with the LUMEX and delivered to them in 3 days. As a result, they successfully resumed producing parts on the 4th day. If it were not for us, they would have waited a stressful 7 days to get the insert back. The processes we and they did were following.
- 1 hour for programming
- 2 hours for set up
- 25.5 hours for LUMEX operation
- 3 hours for quality check with CMM
- 4 hours for post-process and assembling
No matter what you make, you only need the powder material – no material procurement process. No need for wire EDM thanks to the LUMEX hybrid method – No fixture manufacturing and no programming for EDM. This is why the LUMEX was a great solution. The insert had none of the special intricate design which was only possible to be made in additive manufacturing. I can honestly say making this insert with the LUMEX cost more than the conventional method. However, considering all the possible losses during the production being on hold, this justified all the costs, and we saved the day!
“We didn’t do any design change this time because it was urgent. We can earn more benefits easily if we redesigned this insert with conformal cooling channels.
This is what they commented.
Put us to the test!
“We have already tried a metal 3D printer ten years ago, and it was far away from what we expected.”
I believe many people still have this idea. However, we believe we can change this stereotype finally. At JIMTOF 2024, we had some visitors who already tried the LUMEX in the past. They said, “If the machine is capable of this level of building, it might be worth another shot.” We are thankful for the second chance.
If you use a metal 3D printer to make a mold, you must design a high-end mold that has conformal cooling and porous gas ejection. Otherwise, you cannot justify the investment.
This was a major premise when people considered a metal 3D printer. However, we started seeing some changes these days. Their priority is solving the labor shortage. They consider the LUMEX because they want to solve a reliance on machinery and labor skill set. They just want to make a simple and conventional mold with one button. If they do not need any manual labor, they see it as a great investment. We always thought we would expand the LUMEX technology into more sophisticated molds if we improved the accuracy. It turned out differently.
The 3D printer builds a practical mold itself with one button.
We believe this technology will be needed more in the future.
In conclusion, our simple message is that the technology has reached the practical level and it works here and now. Yes, I made a quite long article stating all the nice things about the LUMEX. The best way is not to explain it to you, but to show it to you. So, please put us to the test.
We have AM-dedicated teams globally and offer LUMEX production services, too. We are looking forward to your contact!
- Matsuura USA (https://www.matsuurausa.com/lumex-production-services/)
- Matsuura Europe (https://www.matsuura.de/en/produkte/detail/lumex-avance-25)
- Matsuura UK (https://www.matsuura.co.uk/brands/lumex/)
- Matsuura Japan (https://www.lumex-matsuura.com/english/)
Come to us. Let us show you, not explain to you. Let us make a part. Let you take that part. Use it in your own process. Evaluate it yourself. And then, I don’t think there’s any further explanation needed.
Thank you for taking the time to read all of my article!!!!!