Based in South Korea, Hyundai Mobis has been an automotive parts manufacturer and supplier for more than 40 years. A future-thinking company, Hyundai Mobis has just become the first automotive supplier, rather than global automaker, to open a design research facility in Korea. Called the Design Model Workshop, the facility was announced late last week. The company has invested about ₩3 billion in the workshop, which will have a floor area of 430 square meters and will be located in Hyundai Mobis’ R&D center in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do.
The company plans to use the workshop to assess how well 3D printed auto components go with a car, so they will be creating life-sized clay models of cars using a large clay model processing machine, and 3D printing parts that will then be fitted to the mockup. New cars will be created in this way, establishing an optimal design process that goes with each model. This process is expected to speed up Hyundai Mobis’ automotive design, as they can have a full car model at an early stage in the process and modify samples in a single place. Designers will be able to work with an actual physical, full-sized model, rather than a virtual one on a screen.
3D printing the components will save significant time as well, and the company plans to improve precision by 3D scanning samples of parts and utilizing the data acquired from the scans.Hyundai Mobis plans to stay ahead of the industry by proactively offering new component designs reflecting the latest trends to customers. For example, the company can 3D print several designs of a head lamp, then show the various designs to the customer and let them decide which version goes best with the car.
The clay processing machine is somewhat like a CNC machine, with a robot arm that cuts clay into the shape of a car. Color and texture are then added, so that the car looks identical to an actual one. The components will be 3D printed on a powder bed 3D printer.“Adding design, which is within the area of emotion, to performance and quality will allow us to secure a competitive edge over global rivals,” said Hyundai Mobis Design Director Kang Han-tae.
Hyundai Mobis is far from the first automotive company to use 3D printing to prototype car components, or to introduce a dedicated center for innovation, but this method of building a life-sized car model and fitting 3D printed parts to it is particularly ingenious. It introduces a speed and accuracy that gives Hyundai Mobis a major advantage, allowing the company to speed production and time to market.
“The new design model workshop will enable Hyundai Mobis to preemptively and precisely respond to customers’ demands,” the company stated. “The usage of 3-D printers shortens the manufacturing time of auto part samples, reducing costs.”
Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.
Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter
Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
You May Also Like
Pressing Refresh: What CEO Brad Kreger and Velo3D Have Learned About Running a 3D Printing Company
To whatever extent a business is successful thanks to specialization, businesses will nonetheless always be holistic entities. A company isn’t a bunch of compartments that all happen to share the...
Würth Additive Launches Digital Inventory Services Platform Driven by 3D Printing
Last week, at the Additive Manufacturing Users’ Group (AMUG) Conference in Chicago (March 10-14), Würth Additive Group (WAG) launched its new inventory management platform, Digital Inventory Services (DIS). WAG is...
Hypersonic Heats Up: CEO Joe Laurienti on the Success of Ursa Major’s 3D Printed Engine
“It’s only been about 24 hours now, so I’m still digesting it,” Joe Laurienti said. But even via Zoom, it was easy to notice that the CEO was satisfied. The...
3D Printing’s Next Generation of Leadership: A Conversation with Additive Minds’ Dr. Gregory Hayes
It’s easy to forget sometimes that social media isn’t reality. So, at the end of 2023, when a burst of doom and gloom started to spread across the Western world’s...