Hyundai Lifeboats: Where was the leak in production?
Our project with Hyundai Lifeboats began in February 2018 with a request from the government of Ulsan, South Korea. The manufacturing industry in Ulsan is booming, and the government challenged us to meet with several companies to accelerate the development of 3D-printed applications.
This project was the epitome of Explore. Just as myself, Director of Innovation at Materialise, and others from the Mindware team, had no experience or knowledge of producing lifeboats, the Hyundai team was unaware of the capabilities and limitations of 3D printing. So, the first step in this project was bringing our two worlds together to pinpoint a relevant business challenge for Hyundai Lifeboats that we believed could best be solved via additive manufacturing.
Easier said than done. We dove into an interactive workshop session in which we discovered each side’s perspectives, expectations, and blind spots. We first discussed how AM could increase the boat’s value — with enhanced speed, performance, functionality — but we were met with hesitancy from the Hyundai team.
When we asked what was on their minds, they quickly redirected the focus to the unit costs of the boat. They hoped that with 3D printing, they could simply press a button, grab a coffee, and print their boats in one go — thereby leapfrogging the current assembly and production process. Due to the large size of the boat and specific materials involved, we had to crush this AM dream, but at least we understood their main preoccupation: production efficiency.
