Heavy Duty Trucking, February 2018

AFTERMARKET INSIGHT HDT FEBRUARY 2018 46 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM Denise L Rondini Aftermarket Contributing Editor drondini@ truckinginfo com aimler Trucks North America recently announced a pilot program to produce plastic parts using 3D printing The mission of this program is to embrace new technologies as a way to deliver service to our customers through better parts availability said Angela Timmen aftersales purchasing manager for interior exterior cab and major components for DTNA The pilot program is aimed at older trucks with hard to source parts and parts with long lead times she explained offering this scenario One hypothetical example might be an older aftermarket part that required significant investments to develop and tool when it was in production but now only sells a few a year in the aftermarket If the tool were to break it might make sense to 3D print the replacement parts instead of repeating the original investments Not only is this an economic decision she said but it also helps avoid making a fleet wait days or weeks for a replacement part The program is focusing on a variety of parts with different characteristics to allow the company to learn as much as possible during the pilot There are many who see more far reaching consequences of 3D printing also called additive manufacturing I see 3D printed parts as being transformative said Eric Starks chairman and CEO of FTR I think this will be one of the biggest trends we see in 2018 and into 2019 I believe every supplier in some capacity will have an additive manufacturing program before long Both Starks and David Gerrard managing partner at Cornerstone Growth Advisors see 3D printing introducing more customization to the trucking industry Timmen agreed In the future technologies like 3D printing could give us new ways to mass customize our trucks and provide better service to our customers As with any new technology 3D printing has its challenges Gerrard enumerated some of them How big will the printers be How fast will they be How expensive How versatile on the raw materials one can use to print parts And maybe the biggest ones are where will the printer be based and who will own it Additive manufacturing has the potential to change the current supply chain Gerrard wondered whether contract manufacturing companies with locations scattered across the country could even take the place of parts distribution centers I think the mindset of this technology is thinking about moving from weeks to days to hours to get parts he said As long as it takes cost and time out of the supply chain then it is incredibly beneficial to fleets Starks sees ramifications beyond just replacement parts Depending on the size and scope of additive manufacturing the way freight gets moved could change Lets say there is a plastic piece of a component that is inexpensive and has traditionally come from offshore and moved through the ports to distribution centers If parts are produced through additive manufacturing you will be moving more commodities like plastics and resins and even metal and wood rather than finished goods DTNAs initial foray into 3D printed parts is a good way to test the waters and find out about fleet acceptance The industry is probably going to be less accepting of a critical part being made via additive manufacturing at first Starks said However he believes that once these non critical parts prove their worth and have low failure rates then we will move fairly swiftly to using additive manufacturing for other more critical parts While DTNA has only launched a pilot program Starks believes it actually will become a very robust system fairly quickly for the industry Coming to a printer near you Denise Rondini offers information and insight to help fleet managers make smart parts and service choices A highly respected freelance writer in the transportation industry she has covered the aftermarket and dealer parts and service issues since 1982 and now covers those areas exclusively for Heavy Duty Trucking and Truckinginfo com She can be reached at drondini@ truckinginfo com or 773 951 8563 D This will be one of the biggest trends we see in 2018 and into 2019 I believe every supplier in some capacity will have an additive manufacturing program