Elgin, Illinois — November 9, 2016 — Carl Dumele has a problem—and solution—that he’d like to share with you. Dumele is the CEO of Aeromotive, a company specializing in electrical connectors and wiring harnesses. In addition, the company provides additive manufacturing services, otherwise known as 3D printing, and that’s where the solution to this particular problem lay.
In a new video released by the company, Dumele outlines a challenge recently experienced by one of Aeromotive’s collision centre customers. The body shop had a damaged bracket that attaches to a wire harness assembly. The assembly itself was fine, but a piece of sheet metal had lacerated the bracket, meaning it had to be replaced.
Dumele says the collision centre soon found that they couldn’t purchase just the bracket. It was only available as part of the whole assembly. The cost for the entire assembly was $1,725. This is the sort of cost increase that could potentially push a profitable repair into write-off territory.
According to Dumele, Aeromotive asked the shop to send them the bracket and see how they could help. The solution turned out to be using additive manufacturing to create a new bracket.
“We 3D printed a bracket, sent it back to the collision centre and had it turned around in eight hours. One day. Cost? $150,” says Dumele in the video.
You can check out the video in the player below.
