JAMPT plays critical role in driving growth of metal AM in Japan

Specialist service bureaus in Japan often act as the first step on the additive journey for manufacturers, allowing them to fully-visualize operations before they fully introduce an in-house system. One such bureau is Japan Additive Manufacturing & Processing Technology (JAMPT), based in Tagajō in Miyagi Prefecture. JAMPT was the country’s first specialist metal 3D printing service bureau to provide technological services from metal powder development, prototyping all the way through to mass production.

The company works closely with aerospace, defense, medical equipment, and automotive sector manufacturers who are planning to deploy metal additive technology. It recently installed the latest GE Additive Concept Laser M2 and runs a total fleet of seven EBM and laser metal 3D printers.

While metal additive technology is anticipated to grow significantly in the Japanese domestic market in the coming years, it is still at an early growth stage. Specialist service bureaus like JAMPT are guiding and educating Japanese manufacturers as they try to deploy the technology to overcome internal hurdles such as defining in-house design processes, select materials and plan for capital equipment investments.

Additive momentum

As the use of metal additive manufacturing grows internationally, spurred on by successes with part consolidation and light-weighting, JAMPT’s plant manager Shoichi Sato believes that some industries in the country are still catching up.

“While aerospace companies in the US and other countries are installing metal additive components into aircraft engines, here in Japan, we are still often faced with his helping and educating companies how to identify the possible benefits of the technology,” said Sato.

“If you take a snapshot of Japanese industry, it is the defense industry – thanks to support from the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), part of the Japanese Ministry of Defense – that is currently progressing further than other industries, in terms of the technological and practical use of additive manufacturing. However, there are encouraging developments underway in the medical equipment industry and the automobile industry, and the number of successful cases and new requirements are progressively growing, little by little.”

Based on the scale of Japanese manufacturing industries, additive manufacturing has a great potential for growth. “In terms of the adoption of metal additive here in Japan, it becomes clear that there are specific issues in each industry. Identifying and then solving them, will lead to the growth of the additive manufacturing market. We think we have a good opportunity here at JAMPT, to play an important role and contribute to the additive manufacturing industry as it develops,” adds Sato.

Space to grow

JAMPT has recently been involved in includes a recent project with JAXA – the Japanese national aerospace and space agency. “We took part in a project to manufacture components for KOUNOTORI, the unmanned cargo transfer spacecraft for the International Space Station that completed its mission in 2020. JAXA wanted to additively manufacture the attitude control injection nozzle because conventional machining was problematic in terms of the manufacturing time and weight. During the development of this thruster part, we recommended using Ti-6Al-4V powder and GE Additive’s EBM technology,” explains Sato.

Using EBM, Sato and the team managed to reduce the manufacturing time for the nozzle by 60% and decrease part weight by 64%, by successfully using topology optimization. The process improved material yield significantly, by 30% more than that of the conventional process.

Pushing boundaries

JAMPT supports many companies across a wide variety of industries in introducing metal 3D printing and as a specialist service bureau, has used its metal 3D printers to form many shapes that had been previously thought either impossible or difficult to form. The company was established by a joint investment between KOIWAI Co., Ltd., TOHOKU University Venture Partners Co., Ltd.(THVP-1 fund), and Sojitz Corporation.

KOIWAI Co., Ltd.’s activities involve the advanced technical and functional aspects of metal 3D printing, process control and quality control during the development, manufacturing, test production, and mass production of metal powders. Professor Akihiko Chiba of the Institute for Materials Research, at Tohoku University, supports from an academic point of view while Sojitz Corp. manages and operates the business using its global network, information collection and analysis capabilities.

Certified Japanese quality

To respond to its customer requirements, JAMPT is also engaged in R&D to improve the quality of the products produced by additive manufacturing and is currently conducting the predictive and inverse design of residual stress and deformation volumes by compensating residual stress analysis results using experimental data, as well as conducting repeated parameter optimization tests using the experimental design method and other ways to control defects due to the forming parameters.

In addition, JAMPT has acquired JIS Q 9100 certification – a quality management system required by manufacturers in the aerospace and defense industries in Japan and is equivalent to the AS 9100 standard used in North America and the EN 9100 standard in Europe.

JAMPT has also formed a technical partnership with Tokyo R&D Co., Ltd., a renowned automotive sector research institute, to provide a Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) support program for automobile manufacturers. The partnership provides various services including proposals for the use of additive manufacturing in the automotive sector and services for other industries, such as structure and strength analyses to manufacture lightweight jigs, tools, and thermal fluid analyses for the thermal management of coils and heatsinks.

Mr. Sato says, “As the adoption of metal 3D printing among our various manufacturing communities, the demand for specialist metal 3D printing service bureaus in Japan is increasing. If you are getting started, encountering challenges with additive manufacturing, please contact us. Let us seek solutions together using our metal additive technology and apply the expertise and knowhow that we have developed.”