| CRDM Ltd Move to 21st Century Factory…
 From August 2007 CRDM will be operating from a brand-new factory at Wycombe Sands, located some three miles from its original premises., The new 22,000sq ft purpose-built facility offers fantastic access, storage, and room for projected growth. Destined for the new site, are two more SLS machines, bringing the total machine count up to six in all, including a HiQ style Vanguard. Also arriving will be two new injection moulding machines including a 250 tonne press, which when added to the three existing presses, will give CRDM capacity across a shot weight range from 12g up to 600g. This extra moulding capacity will offer their customers greater flexibility for their production and prototype injection moulding requirements.
“With the much needed extra space and equipment CRDM is able to offer increased capacity and shorter lead-times. With the advantage of having a tailor-made factory with purpose built individual production cells, we have created a more effective production system that is easier to control and monitor, thereby increasing quality and project management levels. Basically our clients will get a significantly better service” says UK Sales Manager Andrew Mitchell.
CRDM is planning an openday event for it’s customers who will be invited to view the new facility. The actual date will be announced nearer the time, but should be around October/November 2007.
CRDM will continue to offer all of its metal and plastic sintering, vacuum casting and stereolithography services from the new site, as well as rapid prototyping, rapid tooling, production tooling and moulding.
In the meantime all post will be redirected to the new address for six months and customers using the old telephone numbers will be redirected to the new site. Please note new telephone and fax numbers, the company email and personal email addresses remain the same.
CRDM Rapid Prototyping
NEW! Stainless Steel & Cobalt Chrome DMLS components… direct from CAD! (click here to visit the Dmls page)
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CRDM Celebrate Accreditation
CRDM Limited is proud to announce being awarded ISO 9001:2000 accreditation.
Achieving ISO 9001 accreditation last month (December 2006) demonstrates CRDM’s continuing commitment to providing our customers with the high quality of service and traceability that they have come to expect. We hope that this achievement will help us to build on our reputation as a centre of excellence in rapid prototyping and tooling
In 2007 CRDM hope to obtain further success by achieving automotive accreditation status to support its growing success within this market.
'Prototype' magazines independant evaluation of CRDM - Rapid Prototyping & Rapid Tooling.
"Over the past few issues, I've been visiting a wide range of different rapid prototyping and tooling suppliers in the UK to look at their core areas of competence, see what makes them tick and investigate the challenges that they've helped their customers overcome. Along the way I have seen companies that specialise in one or two methods of rapid prototyping manufacture to great success as well as those looking to offer a much wider range of rapid prototyping technologies and processes to its customers."
Based in High Wycombe , the Centre for rapid Design and Manufacture (CRDM Limited) has established itself over the last 10 years as a ‘one-stop-shop' for organisations looking for assistance in many areas of rapid prototype manufacture. CRDM has been involved in the UK rapid prototyping community since 1995, and was one of the first companies in the UK to embrace the SLA process with 3D Systems very first machine, the SLA90, and even now is an early adopter of rapid prototyping and tooling technologies that haven't received a wider public audience.
On the rapid prototyping with plastics and resin side, CRDM runs a mixture of machines and processes. For SLA production, it has two SLA 250s and a larger capacity SLA 3500. To offer a range of prototype functionality, CRDM runs these machines with a variety of stereolithography resins, ranging from the first opaque resin, the ABS mimic Vantico 7580, through to PP & PE mimic with the Somos 9120. CRDM also runs the Somos 11120 ‘Watershed' water clear and water resistant resin that mimics clear ABS and can be polished to provide transparent parts. Moving from SLA to SLS ,CRDM still has its first machine, a DTM 2000, along with a DTM 2500 plus and a DTM Vanguard – all of which can run either a basic nylon powder or a 20% glass filled Nylon. Other additive rapid prototyping processes that the organisation has in-house also includes a Perfactory system from Envisiontec which forms the basis for their ‘Micro-Modelling' service. The additive processes are also backed up with an extensive vacuum casting workshop, that's used to create series runs of parts and batch production, as well as a full suite of injection moulding machines backing up their rapid tooling department.
Moving away from plastic prototype and production, CRDM also offers a number of metal related methods of manufacture. Firstly, CRDM is the only commercial Direct Metal Laser Sintering ( DMLS ) service for Nickel-Bronze and Steel tooling inserts and components in the UK , using its EOSINT M 250 Xtended system. Alongside this, it also offers more traditional methods of metal part production using a number of CNC and wire/spark EDM machining centres. All of these processes have been deployed for the creation of both end-use parts and tooling projects- the later of which are obviously then used in the companies injection moulding facilities. In terms of design and development services offering, CRDM runs Pro/Engineer as its main workhorse CAD tools, but also gets involved in system design, embedded software design (SOC, FPGA and ACIC) and PCB development.
Client diversity
CRDM's product offering is pretty impressive and wide ranging - but I can't currently think of another service bureau that offers this breadth of service from a single location – but what I really found interesting was how the organisation works with it's clients and what its attitudes are towards the work it does.
The first thing that struck me was that CRDM works with a wide range of companies, across the full spectrum of the design, engineering and manufacturing world. For example, it's recently carried out work with a number of one-man-bands or a person with a good idea for a product that wanted help developing it further and getting it into production. But at the almost polar opposite is the work CRDM does with larger enterprises, ranging from recent projects with Komatsu to the work it did with Triumph on the Rocket III motorcycle.
The 2.3 litre Rocket III bike was shown at the Milan Motorcycle Exhibition then made its debut in the UK at the Motorcycle Show in Birmingham a couple of months later.
Both of the events preceded production by several months but special show bikes were needed. These show bikes were produced by Triumph in conjunction with CRDM who used rapid prototyping techniques for the rubber over-moulding on to metal substructures. The metalised/chrome visual components were some of the most technically difficult but Triumph Motorcycles required that they had the desired ‘production-quality' look and feel.
CRDM delivered the prototype components Triumph needed using a wide selection of the services it offers including SLS, SLA , vacuum casting and thermoplastic injection moulded components using CRDM's DMLS rapid tooling system. CRDM also supported Triumph's designers with design intent aluminium and stainless steel components using sand and investment casting technologies from rapid prototype patterns. All such components were supplied heat treated, fully machined, and finished.
In conclusion
The Centre for Rapid Design and Manufacture has an impressive arsenal of rapid prototyping technology and manufacturing processes in-house, ranging from the additive rapid prototyping that its perhaps best known for, through more traditional vacuum casting, CNC machining and injection moulding.
What this means for the potential customers is that instead of providing you with a single piece part (and you having to source your other parts elsewhere) the organisation can offer you a range of services that should be able to meet all of your needs. It also means that you can stick with a single supplier as your project moves through the development stage, as it could provide initial concept models, then as the product reaches freeze, form and fit SLA 's or laser-sintered parts for functional test, then once the final iteration is complete, vacuum cast or injection moulded batches to get on the road to full production.
But as with all good rapid prototyping service providers, what really counts is the fact that they have the in-house staff with the knowledge to work with their customers, irrespective of pre-existing knowledge levels, to help in finding the most suitable methods to assist in developing products further and eventually bringing new products to market”.
Al Dean
Editor
Prototype Magazine
Q1 2005, issue 6 |
