GE Healthcare’s “Innovative Design and Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center” for Europe is now open in Uppsala, Sweden.

Undeniably, one of the biggest benefits of 3D printing is that it can be used to speed up the process of producing tools and products. This is especially useful when it comes to the healthcare industry and is one of the main reasons as to why GE Healthcare has now opened a 3D printing lab in Uppsala, Sweden.

GE is calling the lab “The Innovative Design and Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center for Europe”. Here, technology will help put new products for the healthcare industry into the right hands at a faster pace.

This isn’t GE Healthcare’s first center. The Europe site joins the company’s manufacturing and engineering center based in Milwaukee, USA. Both teams will now be able to collaborate together to help develop new designs. Andreas Marcstrom, Manager of Additive Engineering at GE Healthcare’s Uppsala site, said:

“We are exploring opportunities where additive can bring cost savings and technical improvements to our supply chain and products. Simply printing a part doesn’t really deliver that much improvement to a product or process. You have to re-think the entire design – to do this, you need your R&D teams and your additive manufacturing engineers working from the start of the development process – our center in Uppsala ensures that critical step.”

What Can be Found at the Center?

At the center, you can find both traditional machining equipment along with high-tech robots and 3D printers. GE Healthcare spared no cost, there are also metal and polymer 3D printers onsite. Better yet, collaborative robots — aka cobots — also help to efficiently speed up processes.

The center encourages teamwork, with research and design teams working closely with engineers and even customers. These teams will then create 3D printed parts for products.

GE Healthcare states that one of the main reasons for choosing 3D printing is that it can combine a huge number of parts into just one single part, drastically improving performance.

However, this isn’t the only use for the site. Already the center is being used for testing products ready for the market. In fact, GE is working with Amgen, the biotechnology company.

Amgen and GE are now testing a 3D printed chromatography column which can hopefully be used to develop biopharmaceuticals. These are drugs which treat diseases such as immune diseases and cancer. More on the GE website.

Source: GE Press Release