John Deere finishes KitkAdd Project

After a little more than three years, the KitkAdd research project was successfully completed in March 2020. The aim of the KitkAdd research project was to reduce the overall manufacturing costs by combining additive manufacturing with established manufacturing processes such as machining, sintering and injection molding.

As a result, a design method adapted to additive manufacturing is now available, which describes design recommendations and achievable manufacturing accuracies to the user. Industrial production concepts have been developed for the components under consideration, which enable a more economical production compared to the purely additive process chain. John Deere considered the additive manufacturing of gear components and heat exchangers in the project. A new type of process monitoring by means of acoustic sensor technology can now additionally minimize the resulting scrap. The 10 partners from industry and research in the joint project were funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in its programme "Innovations for tomorrow's production, services and work".