thyssenkrupp Collaborating with Impact Labs on New Israeli Metal 3D Printing Center

German company thyssenkrupp is a diversified industrial group, supplying reliable solutions, services, and products to its many global customers in a wide variety of industries: from automotive, chemicals, and construction to aerospace, mining and metals, and shipbuilding. With locations in 79 different countries, the group is organized into five different business areas, including Steel Europe and Elevator Technology, and also has three separate business units – Marine Systems, Forged Technologies, and Bearings – which report directly to thyssenkrupp AG.

We’ve now learned that thyssenkrupp is investing several million euros in a new Israeli center that will focus on advanced manufacturing supported by metal 3D printing.

Just a few years ago, the company first began investing in 3D printing by announcing at Hannover Messe 2017 that it planned to open a new facility dedicated entirely to additive manufacturing technology; the Germany-based TechCenter Additive Manufacturing is located on the premises of a thyssenkrupp steering components facility.

That same year, thyssenkrupp developed a new digital platform, called toii, that was able to connect all the machines in its materials division, regardless of their generation and make. This made it possible to integrate several hundred machines a year, so that the company could continue 3D printing metal parts for various applications, such as elevators and submarines.

At NAMIC 2019 in Singapore this fall, the company announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with TÜV SÜD to deliver industrial AM solutions in the APAC region. Now, its Marine Division is centering in on western Asia, thanks to its newly announced collaboration with Israeli company Impact Labs.

“Making things. Creating impact,” the website states. “A business environment for creating, learning and initiating physical products that change the world.”

The result of this collaboration is the joint venture Metal Point, a new metal 3D printing center that will work with Israeli companies in need of customized metal parts. Established in order to increase productivity in the country’s economy and “lead technological solutions for advanced manufacturing,” Metal Point will receive support from the Ministry of Economy, the Israeli Institute of Metals at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the Manufacturers Association of Israel, and other agencies which encourage manufacturing innovation.

The center was recently inaugurated when Dr. Alexander Orellano, a member of the board of directors of Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, made a visit to Israel.

“We regard the economic strengthening of Israel with innovation and entrepreneurship as an important goal. The establishment of a first-of-its-kind 3D metal-printing innovation center will allow Israeli start-ups and industrial companies to enhance their position in the international market. The strategic collaboration with Impact Labs is a significant example of ThyssenKrupp’s commitment to the long-term relationship with Israel,” said Dr. Orellano.

The Israeli Ministry of Economy has estimated that advanced manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, will be able to help increase the country’s industrial GDP by NIS 25 billion annually, and the new Metal Point joint venture fits right in. It offers an an innovation and knowledge center for manufacturing 4.0, as well as advanced production center for metal 3D printed parts that houses a ProX 300, ProX 100, and Metal-X ADAM.

Each month, Metal Point’s 3D Innovation Center will offer training courses and conferences in the future, and is already holding professional meetings at the IMPACT LABS complex in Tel Aviv to, as the website states, “establish and support an Israeli community of individuals and companies passionate about advanced manufacturing through metal additive manufacturing.”

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