Celebrating the opening of PEP/Trigon, Warsaw, with a ribbon cutting, from left are Becky Plummer, Kosciusko Chamber Ambassador; Jane Ware, chamber board chairman; Toby Farling, director of Additive Manufacturing; Carlos Orihuela, vice president of manufacturing for Trigon; Carl Anderson, general manager; Joe Fenoglio, vice president; Tom Fenoglio, vice president; Mark Dobson, president and chief executive officer Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce; and James Woodcox, chamber ambassador. (Photos by Deb Patterson)

WARSAW — Celebrating the completion of its new 11,000 square feet Warsaw facility, Precision Engineered Products/Trigon held an open house for customers, prospects and Warsaw community, Wednesday, Sept. 30. Preceding the festive event was a ribbon cutting hosted by the Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce.

The Warsaw center currently employs three full time individuals with expectation for that number to grow to five or six to include designers and engineers. Carl Anderson, general manager, stated that number is expected to grow to 10 in a year, 20 a year later and continue upward.

Guests had the opportunity to inspect PEP/Trigon’s Design and Manufacturing Center, the goal of which is to provide close support to the orthopedic manufacturing community. A cornerstone of the site is PEP’s innovative Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence intended initially to fulfill the additive manufacturing needs of the existing orthopedic products customer base while extending additive manufacturing services to the many other industries including bioscience, aerospace, energy and transportation served by PEP.

Guests viewed the unique Sawbones Lab established to support the community’s device manufacturers with a facility for conducting sawbones exercises right on the spot.

Under the leadership of Anderson, this center will provide a strong design and additive manufacturing presence for PEP in the heart of the orthopedic manufacturing community. Orthopedic engineering designers can take advantage of these advanced resources, including the Sawbones Lab that is no more than a five-minute drive from their own locations.

Orthopedic manufacturers have been among the early implementers of additive manufacturing and Toby Farling, director of PEP’s Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence, has been an active participant in developing advanced additive manufacturing applications in this arena. Under his leadership the mission of the center will be: First to methodically and expeditiously fulfill additive manufacturing needs of the existing orthopedic products customer base; and Second, extend additive manufacturing services to PEP Business Units serving other high-tech industries.

The interest in additive manufacturing among product developers across the entire spectrum of manufacturing is increasing exponentially. This is because technologies like Direct Metal Laser Sintering can accurately produce parts directly from the CAD model to eliminate the cost and lead times (often several weeks) for tooling while making it possible to produce complex geometries that would be difficult or impossible to reproduce even with the most sophisticated CNC equipment.

The ability to create advance structures and new surface topologies with DMLS also has the potential to significantly improve product performance in unique ways.

Dedicated DMLS systems

Advanced EOS DMLS additive manufacturing system cutting 3-D prints of objects out of stainless steel without tooling.

Two advanced EOS DMLS additive manufacturing systems have been installed at the center. To avoid contamination issues each of these systems is dedicated to a specific material from a validated source:

• EOS M280 dedicated to stainless steel.
• EOS M290 dedicated to Titanium.

These DMLS systems have been commissioned and ready for prototyping assignments.

PEP is prepared to install additional systems for prototyping and production manufacturing on an as-needed basis. It was noted during the open house there is space for four additional systems.

Sawbones Lab Expedites Prototype Testing

Once a customers’ design engineers have grown a prototype orthopedic appliance in PEP’s center, they can immediately transition into testing it at the adjacent Sawbones Lab. There is no need to set-up or break down specialized testing environments. It’s waiting and ready to be used.

A view of the unique Sawbones lab to expedite prototype testing.

PEP is scanning the marketplace to equip the lab with conventional and emerging tools and materials for performing simulated surgeries and analyzing the results. Designers and manufacturing process developers can observe Sawbones Lab outcomes together and quickly arrive at a clear consensus as to what goals should be established for the next design and manufacturing process development phase.

Prototyping assignments

Although the center was scheduled to open in August of 2015, customers who knew the equipment had been installed began asking the center to take on some urgent prototyping assignments. For example:

• A leading orthopedic products manufacturer needed to produce 10 femoral instrument pieces (two in each of five sizes) for an imminent cadaver study in less than a week. They were produced via DMLS directly from the CAD model, finished and delivered on time.
• Another fast turn prototyping project involved manufacturing custom pediatric forceps tips with DMLS technology and then attaching them to a standard grip. The customer is now interested in exploring the use of DMLS technology to produce a line of customizable surgical tools.

To view a video about the company click here.

Tom Fenoglio, vice president, explains what Precision Engineered Products Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence and do in Warsaw, to Jon Blackwood, Warsaw businessman.