Japanese-headquartered global foundry group relies on sand binder jetting from Desktop Metal’s ExOne brand at facilities in Japan and the United States to deliver high-quality castings with fast turnarounds
BOSTON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 25, 2022 — Desktop Metal, Inc. (NYSE: DM) today announced the sale of a 10th digital sand 3D printer to the Kimura Foundry Group, a global network of foundries outfitted with cutting-edge equipment to deliver high-quality castings with increased productivity. Following the purchase of a new S-Max®, Kimura Foundry Group now owns the largest number of ExOne systems globally.
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Dr. Yoya Fukuda, President of Kimura Foundry America, with an S-Max at the company’s facility in Shelbyville, Indiana. (Photo: Business Wire)
ExOne, which was acquired by Desktop Metal in late 2021, is the leading digital sand printing solution provider for foundries.
The Kimura Foundry Group fully embraces additive manufacturing as the cornerstone of the next industrial revolution. In the first five years after investing in its first ExOne sand binder jetting machines in 2013, Kimura’s revenue increased more than 500 percent as a result of the speed and design freedom the new system provided to end customers.
To deliver rapid casting solutions for R&D prototypes and aftermarket parts, Kimura successfully launched its Direct Molding Process with six ExOne binder jetting systems across several facilities in Japan. The company expanded globally, establishing Kimura Foundry America in 2018 and building a new foundry in Shelbyville, Indiana around the ExOne sand binder jetting process.
Traditional casting processes require waiting almost 40 days for tooling. Today, with the ability to offer end-to-end rapid prototyping in-house, Kimura 3D prints molds and cores in patented ceramic sand and can produce prototype castings within five days.
A new S-Max system set to be installed this year will be the third S-Max platform printer in the U.S. and the 10th ExOne sand binder jetting system for the company globally. For production flexibility, Kimura Foundry America also owns an ExOne S-Print® with phenolic binder to process specialty castings with high-temperature alloys.
“When we started with this technology, we researched digital sand casting printers from around the world and chose ExOne for their high-end technology that delivered top-quality prints,” said Dr. Yoya Fukuda, President of Kimura Foundry America.
“We are honored that Kimura, a foundry company with such high-quality standards, continues to make us their choice for digital casting solutions,” said Ric Fulop, Co-Founder and CEO of Desktop Metal. “Kimura Foundry Group is truly leading the way in production use of additive manufacturing, and they are an important partner in our mission to demonstrate the benefits of Additive Manufacturing 2.0 across all industries.”
S-Max Binder Jet 3D Printing
ExOne digital casting solutions have leveraged proprietary sand binder jetting technology to successfully create metalcasting tooling for more than twenty years. The S-Max platform, which delivers high quality and speeds for batch and serial production, has been trusted by foundries for over a decade. 3D printing sand molds and cores straight from CAD files enables foundries like Kimura to eliminate months-long lead times and high costs of traditional sand casting tooling. The design freedom of additive manufacturing also enables the production of innovative parts with complex, consolidated geometries for lightweighting and optimized part performance not possible with traditional processes. 3D printing complex cores as one part also eliminates the assembly of multiple components with traditionally produced cores, which is time consuming, labor intensive and often results in scrap and quality challenges.
ExOne will be displaying the benefits of its digital casting solutions for foundry core and mold production at North America's largest metalcasting event, CastExpo in Columbus, Ohio, April 23-26. To learn more about the ExOne S-Max, visit www.exone.com/sand.
About Kimura Foundry Group
Headquartered in Shimizu-cho, Japan, Kimura Foundry Group is one of the largest independent full-service manufacturers of iron, steel, and specialty alloy castings. Founded in 1927, the company has been owned and operated by four successive generations of the Kimura family. Today, Kimura employs more than 900 people at ten facilities in Japan and the United States and serves the automotive, construction machinery, pump, and industrial equipment industries with high-precision castings.
About Desktop Metal
Desktop Metal, Inc., based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with an expansive portfolio of 3D printing solutions, from rapid prototyping to mass production. Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing, metallurgy, and robotics, the company is addressing the unmet challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make additive manufacturing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers around the world. Desktop Metal was selected as one of the world’s 30 most promising Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum, named to MIT Technology Review’s list of 50 Smartest Companies, and the 2021 winner of Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award in materials and Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech Award for sustainability. For more information, visit www.desktopmetal.com.
Forward-looking Statements
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