How does the Bosch industrial group rely on additive manufacturing?

More and more companies are adopting additive manufacturing technologies to increase their productivity and accelerate innovation, whatever their sector of activity. The German group Bosch is no exception and is looking to go further with the creation of a service that relies on the use of 3D printing. This service is at the heart of the Mondeville industrial site in Normandy, France. For 3 years, the specialist of the industrial equipment manufacturer, Théophile Guettier, has created all kinds of 3D printed parts, whether prototypes, templates or even finished products.

3DN: Can you introduce yourself and your link to 3D printing?

I have been working at Bosch since 2000, where I was buyer, quality supplier / customer and, for 3 years, I am a specialist in 3D printing. This mission was entrusted to me as part of the transformation of our industrial site Mondeville near Caen in Normandy. In fact, a unique case within the group, in addition to our “historical” activities as an industrial equipment manufacturer, Bosch Mondeville offers an “Electronic Manufacturing Services” (EMS) service aimed at industrialising electronic products (IoT) for third-party customers. As such, I was asked to explore 3D printing technology in early 2015.

Théophile Guettier on the Mondeville site

After a market research based on my research on the internet and a visit from a startup specialised in 3D printing, we invested in a wire deposit machine. Almost immediately, the cost of this machine was profitable, especially thanks to the printing of robot jaws to divide the costs by more than 100! Many other use cases (bindings, jigs, prototypes, packaging, ergonomics and even finished products) were then sent back to us by the manufacturing operators, our engineers and our customers.