Klöckner & Co invests in technology startup BigRep

  • Strategic investment as part of international financing round
  • 3D Printing matches Klöckner & Co´s portfolio ideally
  • Klöckner & Co continues to systematically drive forward digitalization strategy

Klöckner & Co has invested in technology startup BigRep via its venture capital subsidiary kloeckner.v. Klöckner & Co’s upfront investment before the conclusion of the ongoing international Series B financing round for BigRep GmbH marks its entry into the future market of additive manufacturing. BigRep designs and produces the world’s largest 3D printer and provides consulting for additive manufacturing system solutions. Alongside the financial investment, Klöckner & Co plans to use BigRep’s industrial 3D printers in its extensive European and US site network going forward. This market segment has a promising outlook, with an annual growth rate of around 20 percent expected by 2020.

“The systematic emphases of our Klöckner & Co 2020 strategy are digitalizing the supply and value chain as well as boosting higher value-added products and services,” says Gisbert Rühl, Chairman of the Management Board of Klöckner & Co SE. “Our investment in BigRep targets both elements of the strategy, paving the way to our participation in a highly promising growth market.”

“We expect digitalization to radically alter traditional value chains,” says René Gurka, CEO of BigRep GmbH. “Together with Klöckner & Co – the pioneer of digitalization in the steel industry – as our strategic partner, we aim to exploit this trend as we move forward.”

About Klöckner & Co:
Klöckner & Co is one of the largest producer-independent distributors of steel and metal products and one of the leading steel service center companies worldwide. Based on its distribution and service network of around 190 locations in 13 countries, the Group supplies more than 130,000 customers. In addition to companies in the construction industry as well as machinery and mechanical engineering, Klöckner & Co serves customers in the automotive and chemical industry, in shipbuilding and in fields of household appliances, consumer goods and energy. Currently Klöckner & Co has around 9,100 employees. The Group had sales of around €5.7 billion in fiscal 2016.

The shares of Klöckner & Co SE are admitted to trading on the regulated market segment (Regulierter Markt) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) with further post-admission obligations (Prime Standard). Klöckner & Co shares are listed in the SDAX®- Index of Deutsche Börse.
ISIN: DE000KC01000; WKN: KC0100; Common Code: 025808576.

About BigRep:
BigRep is a tech startup headquartered in Berlin with offices in New York and Singapore. The pioneering developments of the company founded in 2014 include BigRep ONE, which is complemented by the smaller BigRep STUDIO. BigRep’s multinational team has since grown to over 60 employees with interdisciplinary expertise and in-depth experience in additive manufacturing. As well as new products, the company based in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district today focuses on end-to-end solutions for industrial customers in the form of integrated additive manufacturing systems. One example is the TNO project, which was launched in fall 2016. The highly innovative engineering enterprise aims to revolutionize design, prototyping and industrial production worldwide from the ground up. BigRep’s goal is to become a leading global supplier of additive manufacturing systems within the next five years.

For further information as well as pictures and video material please contact:

Maik Dobberack
PR & Communication
BigRep GmbH
T +49 (0) 30 208 4826-38
E [email protected]

For Klöckner & Co SE:

Christian Pokropp
Head of Corporate Communications
Klöckner & Co SE
T + 49 (0) 203-307-2050
E [email protected]
Christina Kolbeck
Investor Relations & Sustainability
Klöckner & Co SE
T + 49 (0) 203-307-2122
E [email protected]

Announcing a Major UI Update (v. 0.7.1 ) 

Dear BigRep Customers and fans. After several months of work, internal tests and testing together with our alpha customer, we are happy to announce a new UI with a new back-end from BigRep. With the upcoming  release of the STUDIO, we have decided standardize on a new look and a new control system that can work across multiple product families.

The most visible change is that we are using modern web technologies and design guides for making a clear and easy interface. To do this we have also adjusted to using Octoprint as the back-end of our new UI. This also means that we will validate and use more existing tools for the interface when they exist. This also allows us to put custom technologies in private plug ins; and means less time doing small bugfixes and boilerplate work, and more time making product-specific features.  Furthermore is the new UI also simpler easier to use and much more stable than our old UI that we have been delivered with the printer for the last years.

Existing BigRep ONE.3 customers (The new UI is not yet available for the 1.2)  that would like to update, please contact [email protected] to schedule a phone or Skype call with our software team. We want to make sure you have all of your questions answered, since this is a somewhat major update! To download a new manual, please go to the support portal, and download  the updated manual here (login required).

New BigRep ONE.3 machines (Shipped from May 2017 on), and our new STUDIO machine will ship with the new software by default.

Here is a shot-list of new features:

  • • Resume from power outage
  • • Better/clearer UI
  • • Built-in software update tool
  • • Improve path-planning firmware, 10% machine speed improvement
  • • Once a print is completed, exact print-time logged for future display
  • • Local network Web UI for loading files and tracking print progress
  • • Easier pre-heat and configuration options.
  • • ... and lots lots more !

Contact us to book your upgrade spot today: [email protected]

The 3D Printing Process: Taking One Designer’s Idea from Concept to Reality

Case Study #1 / Cocktail Table / By Anna Maria Mannarino of Mannarino Designs, Inc.

Our first Designer Case Study was submitted by Anna Mannarino, an award-winning interior and event designer based in Holmdel, New Jersey. For more information on Anna and her studio, keep reading to the end of this post!

The concept for this cocktail table - appropriately named The Mannarino Table after its designer - centered around reinventing a classic piece of furniture: the piece emulates a side table draped with a traditional white tablecloth. The juxtaposition of the inherently soft fabric of a tablecloth with the rigidity of recycled plastic offers a unique and beautiful spin on a classic silhouette.

For the popup we printed a 13” diameter version of the table using white PLA filament. In her design submission Anna envisioned a set of three tables in various sizes, which could be used as a set or on their own. She also suggested using bright colours or metallic finishes, which would even further transform the table into a decidedly modern and on-trend piece of furniture.

Right away, I could also see these tables being stackable or even offered in a bar-height version - complete with a couple glasses of wine and a light summer breeze on a New York rooftop. The beauty of 3D printing - and a key element of Print the Future’s vision - is the idea that designers can engage with these moments of inspiration and innovation, quickly and affordably. It sounds cheesy, but the only limit to what you can create really does become your imagination.

Keep reading.... (on Print the Future)

 

A Big Perspective On BigRep

We’ve been following the development of BigRep for some time now, and at this point the company is a significant player in the 3D space.

Started only a few years ago, the idea was to build a large-format 3D printer based on technology that had, at the time, only been used within smaller desktop models.

Since then the company has gradually improved their products and just last week announced their second machine. Actually, they have a third product in a way also, as they’ve partnered with Germany-based Kühling&Kühling to rebrand their massive delta-style heat-controlled 3D printer through BigRep’s globe-spanning sales and service network.

BigRep is itself now big: they boast of around 70 staff, 40 resellers and have multiple offices: Europe, North America and Asia. This globally-spaced office configuration permits them to deploy “follow the sun” support services: there’s always someone awake to provide assistance to their customers. BigRep says they are able to provide 4-hour response time all day long now.

Keep reading… (on fabbaloo.com)

StartUp Stories: mitte meets BigRep

Ronja Scholz from BigRep prints our latest prototype and reflects on the future of 3D Technology

While much of the process of hardware manufacture, from supply chain to assembly – is as challenging as it’s always been – prototyping, thanks to 3D printing, is faster, less wasteful and more exciting than ever before.
And so, as our hardworking mitte engineers finalize the mechanics of our machine and our development team put refining touches to the concept design, it was time to create our first 3D model.
To do this, we turned to BigRep, a groundbreaking player on the Berlin startup scene and maker of the largest serial 3D printer in the world. Industrial designer Ronja Scholz talked us through the BigRep process and philosophy, as she printed our model.
How would you describe the philosophy at BigRep?
Ronja: “The idea at BigRep is to use 3D printing really for industrial use cases. Our FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) printer – the largest printer available on the world market at the moment, is bridging the gap between 3D printers designed for modeling and industrial use. Right now most of our customers use it for prototyping – to see how shapes come off. We have customers with projects that would have taken weeks and months in CNC machining, that can be done over night. So to see what kind of new shapes and projects they realize that weren’t feasible before is already quite astonishing. But in the not-distant future, when the technology has evolved a little better, we’ll be able to print final products with it.
At BigRep we’re researching different uses cases. For example applications for architecture, such as printing shells for concrete buildings. Creating molds in architecture up to this point in time, has been a resource-intensive and complicated process. You have to build the shell where you pour the concrete in, but now we’re looking at ways to print those shells and afterwards biodegrading them to take them off. As the technology gets better, we will become increasingly capable of doing more socially good and sustainable things with it.”
Tell us about the 3D print for mitte?
Ronja: “First I take your CAD-model and slice it to see how the printer will print it. FFF technology prints in layers. So you can decide the layer height, depending on the resolution and time the print should take. And with the layer itself, you can decide how thick the walls are and how the details come out.
To make it a really nice print, I decided to split the model into several parts so they all have good adhesion to the print bed. We sliced it in a way that it needs nearly no support. With FFF or FDM technology you often need support to print. We offer two solutions of support material: either support made from the same material, or from another material that dissolves afterwards, but as the geometry is beautifully simple we will print it with very little support.
So we set it up and the slicer calculates roughly 40 hours. The material we’re using to print this is PLA – polylactic acid. It’s a bio-plastic that melts at 200 degrees, therefor great for this open print, and also, of course, it’s biodegradable.”
How did the collaboration with mitte come about?
Ronja: “I got to know Moritz first at Berlin’s Fab Lab and when I returned from NYC we got in touch again because I thought mitte was such a good product. I hadn’t forgotten it.
Water is increasingly an issue globally and I think there’s many applications for mitte – outside even home use. It can contribute to good things in the world.
One good use, by the way, would be having a mitte at our office! We have coworkers from all over the world, and many of them, though often surprised about the quality of water in Berlin, are averse to the idea of tap water. So if we had one at BigRep we’d definitely put it to good use.”
About 40 hours later…
The print went brilliantly and shows just how magical rapid prototyping is. With our model we can now test everything from size to shape to aesthetics and basic layout as we fine-tune our way to perfect form and functionality.
While refinements will no doubt be made before the machine goes into full scale production, the consensus back at mitte HQ is that the 3D model essentially proves the fundamentals of our design. And it’s saved us weeks of time and energy. So we’re excited and on track for the next phase of our journey to market.
Discover more

BigRep and TNO to develop 3D printing production process 10x faster than current solutions

From the Web.

BigRep, a Berlin-based manufacturer of large-scale 3D printers, has signed a multi-million-euro cooperation agreement with TNO, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. The deal was signed at the formnext trade show in Frankfurt, Germany.

Straight from one of the world’s biggest 3D printing events, here’s some big news from a manufacturer of very big 3D printers: Berlin-based BigRep has signed a cooperation agreement with TNO, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. As part of this new partnership, BigRep will invest one million euros into a joint research project called “AMSYSTEMS,” which will involve developing a fully automatic 3D printing production process capable of fabricating numerous objects at once in the shortest possible time.

The goal of AMSYSTEMS, which has already been implemented by the Eindhoven University of Technology, TNO, and several partners, is to increase 3D printing productivity by a factor of 10. This will require a system of automated post-processing by robots, and a general overhaul of the 3D printing production process—a challenge that BigRep is more than ready for.

Keep reading… (on 3ders.com)

BigRep Releases Long-Awaited Large-Format Plastic

Fabbaloo

BigRep has solved a major barrier to large-format 3D printing in a very ingenious way.

The problem being solved is warped prints.

Wait a moment, you say, “hasn’t that already been solved”.

Well, yes, it has - but only for smaller machines. Smaller desktop units would typically employ a heated print surface that keeps the temperature of the first layer of plastic just at the point where it won’t warp. Too high and it would deform, too low and it would contract due to cooling and a warp would develop.

Warping is an insidious problem because it not only deforms the object’s shape, it can also cause the print to fail entirely if the print becomes loose from the print bed. I hate warping!

But it’s a property of the majority of plastics used in 3D printing. When heated, they slightly expand. When cooled, they slightly shrink. And you need it hot during printing and cool to use the object. It’s unsolvable, or so it would seem.

Major players in the industry overcome the problem by simply heating their build chambers. Stratasys, for example, tends to keep their printers at around 70C internally during printing. When the print completes, the plastic simply cools uniformly in all directions, preventing warp.

But open-format large-scale 3D printers such as BigRep’s ONE are more affected by this problem than smaller machines, simply because larger prints offer more warp opportunity: shrinks are amplified over the longer axes of the model.

Keep reading… (on fabbaloo.com)

 

BigRep acquires NOWlab and starts 3D print innovation consulting for materials and applications

Renowned pioneers for digital technologies and processes Jörg Petri and Daniel Büning become part of BigRep and directors of the innovation department at the Berlin tech start-up.

 

High performance, functionally integrated, multifunctional and resource-friendly - in the field of large-scale 3D printing it is less about the hardware and software but more about the materials used and the resulting applications that have the greatest development potential. This is why BigRep, developer and manufacturer of the world's largest serial 3D printer, has brought on board Jörg Petri and Daniel Büning, two renowned pioneers in disruptive digital technologies from the interdisciplinary design studio NOWlab. Under the name of NOWlab@BigRep, Petri and Büning are now responsible for innovation in materials and applied research to develop cross-sector customized applications at the Berlin based tech start-up.

"With NOWlab@BigRep we can utilize our many years of experience in research, development and design in using new, generative manufacturing methods. The additive manufacturing is only at the beginning of its development - we're therefore delighted that this technology can now be actively pursued with our partners from industry and academia to jointly develop relevant application scenarios. We understand our business as "New Digital Craft", says Jörg Petri, Director of Innovation & Applications at BigRep.

René Gurka, CEO of BigRep: "We have often worked successfully in the last 18 months with Jörg and Daniel. With the acquisition of the NOWlab, the BigRep Campus in Berlin is currently growing at over 1500 m2 with more than 60 employees. With this step, we are investing heavily in the growing field of future consultation and closing a gap in the digital knowledge transfer within the field of 3D printing."

"With NOWlab@BigRep our internal innovation work takes an enormous step forward and will contribute to the many collaborative projects we are already engaged in with industrial partners, research institutions and universities. In addition to conducting research into the current generation of devices, we endeavor to develop solutions that address business-related challenges and satisfy our core business. This includes, for example, the combination of additive manufacturing and robotics", added Daniel Büning, Director of Innovation & Research at BigRep.

We would like to invite you – in addition to a personal factory tour – to a personal interview with Jörg Petri and Daniel Büning or BigRep CEO René Gurka to hear more about the company, relevant developments in materials and applications, and to learn more about the 3D printing industry. If you are interested, please contact the press office: [email protected].

BigRep Fine-Tunes Their Large-Scale 3D Print Strategy

We spoke with BigRep CEO Rene Gurka recently and learned more about the company’s strategy and upcoming moves.

BigRep, you may recall, was perhaps the first company to take the filament extrusion technology to a massive scale, producing a huge 3D printer capable of printing a meter on a side. The original machine was remarkably similar to its smaller cousins, but was simply much larger.

The market for such equipment was at first considered to be for artists who sought ways to 3D print large sculptures inexpensively (or at least compared to the industrial 3D printer  of the day, which were the only ones capable of such sizes.) But as BigRep and similar companies evolved, the companies discovered there was a market among industry for large 3D prints, perhaps again due to the cost of using the higher-end equipment.

Keep reading… (on fabbaloo.com)

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