EU Granted Project

The main objective of the project is to optimize the production of customized metal medical devices through the combined use of additive and subtractive manufacturing. This hybrid technique, often referred to as Sint & Mill (S&M), consists in creating a semi-finished product with a 3D printer and to subsequently apply precision CNC milling for surface finishing. This process is known to reduce milling time up to 50% if compared to classical milling, greatly reducing material consumption, production time, and machine life-time (https://additive3d.net/product/sint-mill/). Despite being superior to classical manufacturing techniques, hybrid manufacturing still relies on suboptimal processing pipelines and, due to the high cost of the materials and equipment involved, it offers room for a further significant reduction of fabrication times and production costs.

ICT-enabled modelling, optimization, analytics and forecasting technologies