New 3D Systems Dual-Laser AM Machine at rms Enables Greater Medical-Device Productivity

3D Systems announced that rms Company, a contract manufacturer of tight-tolerance medical devices, has added the 3D Systems DMP Flex 350 Dual metal-additive manufacturing (AM) machine to its production workflow. rms has more than 30 3D Systems’ DMP 3D printers in its Coon Rapids, MN, AM facility, enabling the company to provide a complete powder-to-package capability to medical-device OEMs--encompassing the entire manufacturing and post-processing workflow required to go from a digital file to a sterilized and packaged final product ready for the surgical suite. With this addition, rms expects to expand the types of implants it produces and accelerate throughput.

Rms has added these DMP printers over the course of four years, allowing for scaled production of titanium implants. With the addition of the DMP Flex 350 Dual, which enables as much as a 50-percent productivity increase over a single-laser systems, rms will be able to increase throughput for smaller implants, including those intended for spinal applications. Rms expects that the same productivity increases will also open new opportunities in the production of large joint and extremity implants while allowing flexibility for existing projects.

“The increase in efficiency we get from the DMP Flex 350 Dual system creates new opportunities for larger and taller parts, which were economically challenging with a single-laser system,” says Ryan Kircher, senior AM engineer at rms. “Another key reason that we decided to invest in a DMP Flex 350 Dual is that it is engineered in a way that allows us to produce the high-precision, high-quality products that we expect from our current installation of DMP systems without changing the processing parameters that we validated when we initially developed our AM capabilities. This will allow us to explore not only new products but also reduce production times and costs on the products that we already are making today.”

See also: 3D Systems

Technologies: Additive Manufacturing

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