Brose
Assembly Line
How Brose Leverages SLA and SLS Technology to Bolster Automotive Production
Brose’s steady growth and their long-term successful partnerships with these OEMs are due in part to the company’s commitment to continuous innovation and improvement. 3D printing is at the core of multiple initiatives in Brose’s design and end-use manufacturing processes and has helped Brose adapt and respond to all the changes in the fast-paced automotive industry.
Prototyping as an application is a perfect — and familiar — fit for 3D printing. While Brose does employ a range of fused deposition modeling (FDM), SLA, and SLS 3D printers for prototypes, their volumes aren’t necessarily what one might expect for proof of concept parts. For Brose, a typical volume for prototypes is closer to 500 or 1000.
Besides the high cost of ordering several million parts and shipping them overseas, the lead time was several weeks, and the millions of parts that weren’t needed would require storage before ultimately creating waste. Instead of ordering the part, the existing CAD was used to quickly 3D print several hundred of them on Form 4. They were ready in a week, and the solution reduced the overall costs and lead times of the entire project.
The Brose team opened their newly arrived Form 4L large-format resin 3D printer on a Tuesday morning. The setup took just 30 minutes, and soon they were printing large welding setup parts using Fast Model Resin. The parts, divided into four pieces, nearly filled the entire build volume. Despite its size, the Form 4L printed it in under two hours, and after a quick wash and post-cure, the fixture was mounted on the welding robot just 45 minutes later.
2022 Assembly Plant of the Year: Continuous Improvement Culture Thrives at Brose
The complex world inside a car door or under a seat is Brose’s domain. The $7 billion Tier One supplier does business with just about every automaker in the world. Customers include legacy firms ranging from Audi to Volkswagen, in addition to startup electric vehicle manufacturers such as Lucid and Rivian. One of Brose Group’s most important facilities is its 18-year-old assembly plant in Vance, AL, which generates more than $400 million in annual revenue. The 302,000-square-foot factory is strategically located between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, near Daimler’s sprawling Mercedes-Benz assembly plant that produces sport utility vehicles.
“During the last three years, we have conducted numerous process improvements and implemented procedures to reduce our plant costs and improve our overall quality,” says Jim Barbaretta, plant manager. “We have improved productivity and production costs by 25 percent over the last four years. “We also improved our productivity by 14 percent and have achieved an average continuous improvement savings of more than $2 million annually,” adds Barbaretta.