Driving Cost Savings and Customization: Labconco’s Strategic Shift to 3D Printing

Labconco's Glassware Washer line incorporates cutting-edge engineering breakthroughs, including additive manufactured (AM) components. One component, a fill sensor mount, acts as a backup for overflow protection. In the conventional approach, this component would have been produced through the injection molding of two separate pieces, followed by assembly using a pin to hold the two parts together.

However, Tim Grove, a product engineer at Labconco, recognized the potential for cost and time savings that fabricating through SLS 3D printing could provide. Inspired by the hinge design employed in Formlabs' own Nylon 12 Powder standard sample, Grove embarked on reimagining the fill sensor mount, aiming to streamline assembly and eliminate the expenses associated with ordering multiple tools.

Through an iterative collaboration with Griffith, Grove worked through multiple versions of the part, ensuring flawless functionality and uncompromising performance. 

“It comes out of the printer with the hinge already functioning and ready to go. So, there are cost savings there and flexibility with production. The Nylon 12 Powder off the Fuse is a good, middle-ground polymer for us. We find a lot of applications for it, and it works really well for us,” says Griffith.

On Labconco’s Kjeldahl apparatus, which is used in analyzing grains, the team was working with an external supplier that produced a tool for a critical blower wheel component. Quantities were low, and the supplier decided to obsolete the part when the tooling reached the end of its life.

Labconco faced a new supplier search, waiting for the design and production of a new tool and molding run, and the high cost of materials and labor. “We looked at a dozen different solutions, and none came close to meeting our specs, especially regarding chemical compatibility. So, I ended up taking a copy, reverse engineering the component, optimizing it, and printing it in Rigid 10K Resin,” says Griffith. “After testing to ensure it would hold up, we decided it was the best solution.”

Their sizeable new format SLA printer, the Form 3L, had arrived just in time — they printed the reverse-engineered blower wheel for 40 days straight to build their stock of the part back up. 

“Rigid 10K Resin has been a go-to for several components. The chemical compatibility was in line with what we needed regarding acids, particularly, in this case, vaporized sulfuric acid. We save hundreds of hours verifying suppliers and materials that don’t pan out by switching to additive manufacturing. In this regard, it’s a strong business case,” says Griffith.

Though some components may be relatively simple, traditional methods of fabricating them can still be costly. A machinist quoted one part, a separator that holds two bearings apart and prevents the bearings from being pulled towards one another, for about $500 each. The part was for a new product, and Labconco had already proved the use case for their 3D printing lab. Griffith immediately started printing the separator on the Fuse 1+ 30W and lowered the price to about $45, around a tenth of what it would cost to outsource to the machinist. 

The improvement process didn’t stop there. Griffith applied the principles he’d acquired during his graduate work through Penn State’s Additive Manufacturing and Design program and reframing the process from just a one-to-one replacement to an entire optimization overhaul.

He experimented with reducing material throughout the part using generative design while maintaining the safety features on the separator that protected operators. Within a day, he had a revised, optimized design, and Labconco started SLS 3D printing the parts in-house for around $20 each. 

“3D printing gives us these huge advantages in terms of what we can do with geometry. If you lightweight a part or apply different design techniques, we can combine components in ways they haven’t been before. We can bring manufacturing in-house and save a lot of money," says Griffith. 

Labconco's unwavering pursuit of excellence extends to testing critical components used in one of its flagship products, the biological safety cabinets. These cabinets are vital in safeguarding personnel and the products being handled within them, relying on specific airflow patterns and HEPA filters. To ensure the highest level of performance, these filters undergo rigorous testing and certification before being marked as complete.

In the past, this testing process heavily relied on human operators, introducing potential variability and limitations. However, Labconco has embraced a transformative approach, harnessing the power of robotic systems to automate the scanning of each filter with impeccable precision. This shift to automation necessitated the development of customized tooling and end effectors for the robotic arms responsible for conducting the tests. Traditional methods of fabrication would be exorbitantly costly and could take months; for the low volume of parts required, 3D printing these parts on the Fuse Series machines was an important part of the transformative approach. 

With SLS parts produced in-house on the Fuse 1+ 30W, Labconco has achieved a remarkable daily utilization of these components, elevating the accuracy and reliability of their product safety testing. This pivotal adoption of additive manufacturing has not only streamlined operations but also empowered Labconco to ensure its products' uncompromising safety and performance.

Labconco was the first company to commercialize the production of fume hoods, and now it’s one of their most significant product divisions. Fume hoods are indispensable for large-scale chemical, pharmaceutical, or agricultural ventures.

One component, a mechanical sash stop that prevents users from opening the hood sash past a specified point (thus saving energy costs), was previously being injection molded. Ordering large volumes made from a single tool limited Labconco’s ability to make changes or customize orders for large customers. Tools wear out, and suppliers sometimes become less reliable in replacing them. To counter supply chain issues they started printing these sash stops on the Fuse 1+ 30W, and now Griffith produces between 50 and 100 of these components each week in Nylon 12 Powder. 

“If you molded that part, you can’t make any revisions easily. It’s as uncommon as it should be, but we’ve had components in the past where we went the injection molding route, and it burned us because we got them back, put them into use, and they started breaking or didn’t work as intended. The engineers are now mindful that if converted some parts to 3D printing, it would be a lot less of a pain to redesign if the need arose, and the number of options for what changes you can make are greater. You can’t always put a dollar value on that, and there are significant ‘intangible’ benefits to additive manufacturing that I believe are often overlooked,” says Griffith. 

Another advantage of bringing 3D printing technology in-house  is the confidence it infers to young employees just starting their careers. Without the absolute perfection necessary to order a new tool, they’re more willing to try new things or bring forth a new idea. “The younger engineers don’t have 20 years of experience that lets them look at a part and say, ‘this will work.’ Having that ability to 3D print, try something – or even a lot of things - out, and if it fails, it’s not hurting as much, if at all, it’s empowering,” says Griffith. “Allowing them to focus on finding the best, most creative solution for any given problem is the head space we want them to live in, and 3D printing is a big part of that.”