Continental uses 3D printing to make automotive displays

Renowned as one of the world’s leading tire manufacturers, automotive technologies leader Continental actually has an even wider solutions portfolio, including automotive part production, connectivity, automated driving and mobility services via its Continental Engineering Services (CES) division.

Cost effectiveness and speed are keys to its manufacturing success, and that’s turned the company on to effective use of additive manufacturing.

Continental has its own Additive Design and Manufacturing (ADaM) Competence Center, which offers both internal and external customers a wide range of additive samples, mechanical parts and series production solutions with metal or plastic assemblies. Continental’s ADaM Competence Center houses an industrial-grade FDM-based Stratasys Fortus 450mc 3D Printer, which manufactures final production parts, prototypes and – most notably – jigs and fixtures for the company’s own production line machinery.

Key to the company’s production capabilities is a range of specialized additive manufacturing materials, enabling the team to produce customized solutions for the production line – such as Stratasys’ ULTEM™ 9085 resin and ESD-compliant ABS ESD7™.

Automotive displays are one such application. “We are able to 3D print the gluing jig for the automotive display assembly with Stratasys’ ABS-ESD7 material, which means we have a fast, safe, and ESD-compliant solution in-house that is customizable,” Kammann says. “This not only ensures continuous fast production, but also demonstrates how we look for the best technology to solve the manufacturing challenges with which we are faced.”

For Continental, the production speed of the Fortus 450mc is a valuable asset to accelerate processes and ensure continuous automotive production. If needed, tools and parts can be produced in just a matter of hours – which means the team can set print jobs to run overnight and have finished parts in their hands the very next morning. This affords Continental much more production agility overall, especially when it comes to replacement parts.