BMW Group AM Campus - Separated components are transported in small load carriers.

The BMW Group has announced the industrialisation and digitalisation of additive manufacturing (IDAM) for automotive processes as part of the IDAM project has been a success.

It is claimed that tens of thousands of automotive components can be additively manufactured using this production line per year.

IDAM is a project consortium funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and was launched three years ago. As part of this project, BMW and GKN Powder Metallurgy built two pilot production lines which incorporated metal 3D printing and automaton technologies. Research institutes, large companies and SMEs have also participated in the project.

The pilot production line developed at BMW uses a central control unit that consolidates all production data from individual line models to ensure maximum productivity, while automated modules carry the 3D printers’ build chambers and transport processed metal powder between workflow phases. Post-processing takes place at specially designated stations, which have also been fully automated. To make sure of the quality of the parts, sensors are leaned on to check, for example, emissions from the molten pool with a CMOS camera and pyrometer, while AI algorithms correlate the data collected with actual component quality. This allows deviations in the process to be identified during production and component quality to be evaluated effectively.  

Using this production line, BMW suggests that around 50,000 components per year can be additively manufactured cost-effectively in common part production, as well as more than 10,000 individual and new parts, using metal powder bed fusion.

Felix Haeckel, Consortium Leader and BMW Group Project Manager commented: “From the very first day of the project. You could feel the team spirit among the partners. Learning from one another, developing innovative solutions together and making the best use of each partner’s individual strengths – those were key to successful industrialisation and digitalisation of additive manufacturing.”

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