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to and from distant ports, they can instead go to a local warehouse or even directly to the client, further reducing transportation costs.
Asking Y
Other Italian companies are leveraging additive manufacturing’s immense potential. For example, 3D-printing service provider Caracol AM (Barlassina, Italy, www.caracol-am.com) recently produced what is believed to be the “largest 3D-printed company logo in Italy and, probably, in Europe” for the headquarters of Inticom SpA (Gallarate, Italy, www.yamamay.com), makers of the Yamamay brand of under- garments and swimwear, accord-
ing to a press release published on Yamamay’s LinkedIn page.
The iconic Y-shaped sculpture measures 3 meters high and nearly that wide, and was made using 170 kg of recycled polypropylene. The project was reportedly the result of an “artistic, technical, and tech- nological collaboration between the two companies, determined by a strong interest of Yamamay in new technologies, sustainabil- ity, and the circular economy as well as the desire to embellish its headquarters and celebrate the restyling of its logo announced in September 2021 on Inticom’s twentieth anniversary.”
There’s also WASP Srl
(Massa Lombarda, Italy,
www.3dwasp.com), a 3D-printer
manufacturer whose mission
states that “the Earth’s resources
are not enough to support the
existing population explosion and
to change the growth models is
no longer an option but rather
an urgent need.” To this end, the
WASP team (short for World’s
Advanced Saving Project) is
engaged in numerous projects,
most notably the BigDelta, a
“giant” 3D printer that produces
low-cost sustainable housing
with locally available materials, as well as the Crane WASP Infinite 3D printer that, again, can build houses onsite using concrete and inorganic “geopolymers.”
Founded in 2012, the company has since developed the WASP Hub, a global network of collaborative support centers, including one
in Jersey City, New Jersey. According to the company website, the hub was created to “share discoveries, innovation, and job opportuni- ties” with other network members, promoting the technology and all that it makes possible to a much larger audience than would otherwise be possible.
Where Research and Innovation Meet
Employee training is vital in any industry, and additive manufactur- ing is no different. To support AM industry expansion, the AITA has established a training workgroup and activities are well underway. One
example of this comes from the
Kilometro Rosso SpA (Bergamo, Italy, www.kilometrorosso.com) innovation district, which recently announced the creation of Lisa Tech, which is described as an optimal training experience for those who want to understand how to introduce additive manu- facturing into their organization, learn design techniques, and experiment with 3D printing for professional applications.
According to the overview on the group’s website, “Additive technologies today represent an increasingly concrete turning point for manufacturing because they allow us to face three of the main industrial challenges in the industrial field: digitization, sus- tainability and customization. To understand how, we start from the results of the study ‘Knowledge, Use and Future Developments of Additive Technologies’ conducted by Italy’s leading Automation and Digital Fair for the SPS Italia Industry, carried out with the MADE Competence Center (Milan, Italy, www.made-cc.eu), of which Kilometro Rosso is a part.”
There are notable hurdles to address, the study noted. These include the lack of internal skills and specialist knowledge on design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), the complexity of post-processing and finishing methodologies, and in other cases, the perception of high investment costs for implementation. “However, the innovative strength of additive manufacturing and the desire to break free from
The ARGO 500 printer from Roboze supports a wide range of polymers and is said to produce prototypes and functional parts in “half the time.” (Provided by Roboze)
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