San Francisco-based additive manufacturing (AM) software firm 3D Control Systems announced that its 3DPrinterOS software has been chosen by Koenigsegg Automotive for AM workflow optimization. Established in 1994 and based in the town of Ängelholm in southwestern Sweden, Koenigsegg is one of the world’s top manufacturers of high-performance sports cars, or hypercars.
Koenigsegg has already incorporated the cloud-based 3DPrinterOS platform into its engineering workflow, which includes 17 fused deposition modeling (FDM) and resin-based 3D printers. According to Koenigsegg, 3DPrinterOS has allowed the auto manufacturers’ engineers to switch between different printing platforms more seamlessly, while also facilitating greater centralization of management concerning the company’s fleet of 3D printers, which has allowed workers to spend less time on administering the machines manually.
Streamlining workflow is an especially critical objective for a company like Koenigsegg, which does most of its product development and manufacturing in-house. And car manufacturers across the globe have rapidly become more focused on automation amid the automotive sector’s accelerated turn towards electrification: EV supply chains are simply far more automated than those for ICE vehicles.
Thus, cloud-based workflow management is a particularly urgent priority for automakers at this point in time, as corporations race to simultaneously innovate and do more with less. This will require maximization of value from all the assets that a given company already owns, which will, in turn, demand unprecedented levels of coordination between all the many different operating areas.
It will also require new partnerships based on overlapping digital ecosystems. In this vein, it is worth mentioning that about a year ago, 3DPrinterOS made its slicing software available for Formlabs’ resin-based SLA and SLS 3D printers. While it is not clear if any of the resin-based printers that Koenigsegg uses are Formlabs machines, it seems like a safe bet given the 3D printing company’s popularity.
Finally, regarding the same concept of overlapping digital ecosystems, but from a different angle, Koenigsegg’s expertise in cloud-based workflow management could make the company an asset to the growing Scandinavian advanced manufacturing scene. As I recently wrote about, the Swedish AM consortium AMEXCI is accelerating its activities and bolstering its infrastructure via a planned advanced manufacturing hub about five hours northeast of Koenigsegg’s headquarters, in Örebro, Sweden.
Interestingly, when the Koenigsegg Regera recently set a new speed record by going from zero to 250 mph in 29.60 seconds, the demonstration occurred on a runway at Örebro Airport. This not only reinforces the idea that large stakeholders in the Swedish economy are building up Örebro’s credentials as a science and technology hub, but also at least hints at the possibility that Koenigsegg could eventually join AMEXCI.