Expanding Additive Manufacturing Solutions with Joint Service Offering from Würth and Baker Hughes

WINA, a subsidiary of Würth Group, will collaborate with Baker Hughes on advanced design for expanding additive manufacturing opportunities across the oil and gas, renewables, power generation, maritime, automotive, and aerospace industrial sectors, bringing a new level of scale and automation to Würth customers' supply chains globally.  As an energy technology company with a position in additive manufacturing services for oil and gas customers, Baker Hughes will now gain access to Würth's global customer base with more than 80,000 clients across a host of industries.

NASA is among the first customers to benefit from the joint service offering.  Baker Hughes is adapting and printing a NASA design using a hybrid of direct energy deposition, an additive process, and machining to manufacture a part to be used in wind tunnel testing.

Würth's global sales teams will now offer Baker Hughes' proven additive manufacturing services to help customers solve advanced design and manufacturing challenges and 3D print parts on demand.  These expanded services also include access to Baker Hughes' digital inventory capabilities that transform warehouse shelves into cloud storage.  Through a combination of machine learning algorithms, past maintenance records, production forecasts, and other documentation, Baker Hughes can select parts suitable for additive manufacturing, digitalize these parts, and provide on-demand ordering using a digital platform.

Through digital inventory management, parts can be stored and produced at hubs closer to operating sites.  As the technology advances, more materials and geometries – both in terms of size and features – will become printable.  Larger volumes of 3D printed items provide for a higher degree of customization, allowing customers to reduce supply chain logistics-related emissions by moving production closer to the point of consumption.