Industry moves fast. Few industries experience the impact of this pace more than food and beverage manufacturers like Coca-Cola. In the US alone, the food and beverage industry will realize an annual growth rate of 4.74% between 2021 and 2025, a staggering number given global disruptions such as ongoing trade wars, Covid-19, and other supply chain issues.

Alongside these disruptions are growing sustainability challenges that seek to tie growth to more responsible, innovative, and circular manufacturing processes. By using more repurposed and recycled materials, less waste winds up in landfills or the oceans.

Rather than consider these challenges being in contention with one another, the opportunity exists to use sustainability as a solution to disruptions across the food and beverage industry. For Hoshea Rittenhouse with Coca-Cola of Columbus, Ohio, this meant using 3D printed parts made from recycled materials for production and maintenance needs.

Sustainable Innovation

When critical infrastructure goes down in manufacturing, so do throughput and profits. When Hoshea Rittenhouse of Coca-Cola in Columbus, Ohio saw the opportunity, he quickly found applications for 3D printing throughout the facility. Starting with ABS, Hoshea moved to 3D printed parts printed in PLA, TPU, PETG, and finally with Recycled PETG, allowing Coca-Cola to use sustainable 3D printing for a wide range of maintenance and production needs.

Using 3D printing filament from IC3D, Coca-Cola found ways to deploy 3D printed parts in the field. reducing downtime, improving workflows, lowering costs, and extending the life of legacy equipment throughout the operation.

Maintenance costs can account for a large portion of overall manufacturing and operational costs. By concentrating on how to use AM and the most suitable material, Coca-Cola was able to achieve remarkable success in not only finding suitable replacements for complex applications but also allowed them to localize and customize the solutions to lower holding costs for spare parts as well as reduce reliance upon a far-flung – and increasingly unreliable – supply chains in an uncertain world.

Additive Manufacturing and IC3D Filament – At Home in Industry

Hoshea helped develop parts for equipment throughout the factory by focusing on the moving parts with a goal of reducing cost and downtime. The first part produced was installed on a label applicator machine reducing the number of replacements per month from as high as 16 to just once or twice a year. The range of materials available from IC3D meant that Coca-Cola could duplicate the current part’s properties to keep from creating a quality issue downstream. The result reduced ten minutes of downtime per reduced replacement, creating a massive cost savings of a $500 to $1 cost ratio.

As the program gained momentum, new materials were utilized for additional applications to expand the presence of 3D printed replacements – and their savings. Other uses for AM throughout the plant included:

Linear Rail Bushings

Long a time-consuming stoppage, replacements for this application were moved to a quick-swap solution, significantly reducing downtime.

HMIs and automated factory controls are critical to today’s manufacturing operations. As Coca-Cola upgrades control interfaces and components, replacement adapter plates can be mounted in place to extend the use of existing infrastructure, saving time and vital CAPEX dollars.

By replacing static metal mounts, the need for adjustments by maintenance technicians is removed so that operators can perform adjustments themselves.

Few issues are more frustrating in manufacturing than dealing with legacy equipment with no OEM available parts. Using IC3D’s PETG filament, caps were made that maintained safety and were more robust, more rigid, and flexible enough to be removed when needed.

By replacing aluminum idler pulleys with PETG printed parts, pulleys used for high speed production now last twice as long and cost pennies rather than dollars per pulley.

Another legacy solution, this printed part replaced the need for limit switches. It resulted in a better part, but it also improved functionality with the use of sensors.

One huge cost in fabricating parts is that subtractive manufacturing requires joining and multiple steps to replicate an existing assembly. 3D printing takes advantage of complex geometries that allow a single piece to be produced, eliminating the joining and time associated with individual assembly components. In the shuttle block, AM printed parts meant the elimination of at least ten steps in the part production process saving hundreds of dollars each time.

In addition to these applications, AM was used throughout the factory for other uses such as shaft replacements, Bag in Box (BIB) holders, shaft replacement, shuttle replacement, handles, clamps, and switch covers. Each of these uses saved both time and money.

Linear rail bushings used on aluminum extrusion
The progression from expensive carbon fiber replacements to functional & inexpensive 3D printed TPE & TPU replacements
3D Printed adjustible sensor mounts
3D printed idler pulleys

3D Printing for Production

The Columbus, OH Coca-Cola plant currently uses five 3D printers to help keep the facility going. The program was presented to the entire North American Coca-Cola manufacturing team and is now in use in every region in the US, with more local plants adding AM capacity every day. Just as Coca-Cola is committed to sustainably producing quality products for their customers, Hoshea noticed early on the quality of filament offered by IC3D compared to other vendors.

We used IC3D and others, but even within the same brand, there was an unacceptable amount of variation, so we switched to IC3D after. We started with cheaper filament and figured out rather quickly that it was not a good way to create consistent parts.

Hoshea Rittenhouse, Coca-Cola

It all started in 2018. Hoshea found that a wide selection of materials was available through IC3D, which produces its high-quality filament with manufacturing in mind. Depending on the performance characteristics required, available materials included:

ABS

High impact resistance & durability make ABS perfect for end-use products.

PLA

Easy to use & perfect for prototypes.

Recycled PETG

A high flow rate, dimensional stability, and superb layer adhesion helps R-PETG excel at large-format 3D printing.

PETG

Dimensionally stable & ideal for large-format, functional products.

TPU

More give without sacrificing toughness & stiffness.

TPE

Traditionally softer & more flexible than TPU.

GF-PA | Glass Fiber Reinforced Nylon

Strong & resilient nylon (PA6) reinforced with glass fibers.

GF-PC | Glass Fiber Reinforced Polycarbonate

All of the rigidity & strength of polycarbonate combined with glass fibers for superior performance.

AM Implementation Tips

Hoshea’s experience guiding the Coca-Cola of Columbus Additive Manufacturing initiative allowed him to offer valuable insights into bringing 3D printing to life on the production floor using sustainable quality filament from IC3D:

  • Get going first. Get started with something accessible as you develop a workflow.
  • The design and print times for AM are significantly less expensive than the maintenance time it’s replacing.
  • AM parts can replace legacy components for pennies on the dollar.
  • 3D printed parts can be easily customized to make them more forgiving in setup and daily use.
  • Iterate often to enable fixing things once.
Hoshea Rittenhouse, Coca-Cola

Companies can reduce setup time, lower costs, extend the life of equipment, and find sustainable innovation right inside their factory with additive manufacturing and production grade materials by IC3D.

Contact IC3D to get help choosing the right material and technology for your application and let us put our experience in 3D printing and material science to work for you.