- Digitizing entire design-to-manufacturing cycle using high-speed 3D printing

VENTURA, Calif., July 18, 2017 — (PRNewswire) — Techniplas, a leading global design and manufacturing provider of automotive products and services, today announced the opening of its Additive Manufacturing Center in Ventura, California.

Operated by Techniplas Digital, the company's digital-innovation and transformation unit, the new facility brings together the latest in generative design and lightweighting technology with advanced 3D-printing capabilities. The Additive Manufacturing Center will deliver lighter and stronger parts, as well as cognitive assemblies, for the benefit of its global automotive clients.

"Everyone from our customers to their customers will directly benefit from the capabilities in our new facility," said George Votis, founder and chairman, Techniplas. "The automotive industry is being disrupted and redefined at lightning speed, and we are putting in the capabilities which will place us well ahead of the curve to better serve our customers and to bring new engineered products to market even faster."

The new facility is already equipped with a dozen 3D printers including DMLS, FDM and SLA printers that are used in support of the company's digital transformation. Techniplas Digital plans to bring another 20 new high-speed 3D printers on line before the end of this year. As one of its first customer-centric initiatives, Techniplas Digital is using advanced additive-metal techniques to rapidly deploy hybrid tooling using 3D-printed materials. Hybrid tooling is the combination of traditional tool and mold bases with modular plugin inserts that are 3D printed for shorter production runs and greater manufacturing flexibility.

"We are moving quickly to eliminate many of the traditional constraints that most manufacturing companies face today," said Avi Reichental, Vice- Chairman Techniplas and CEO, Techniplas Digital. "Our new facility brings together the latest in generative-design tools including metamaterials mesostructural-optimization capabilities and high-speed, UV-curable polymer 3D printing. We plan to leverage our new Additive Manufacturing Center to deliver cognitive connected products and services for a cleaner, lighter, more-personal world."

In addition to speeding up Techniplas' innovation cycles, the new Additive Manufacturing Center is collaborating with early-stage companies to develop advanced algorithms that are designed to enhance its overall digital thread and manufacturing capabilities. That includes a new cloud-based generative design platform that compiles lightweight and metamaterial lattice structures automatically on demand based on size, weight, strength, style, materials, cost, and any number of other requirements that can be specified by a designer or an engineer.

About Techniplas
Techniplas is a leading global design and manufacturing provider of engineered products and services that are helping to shape the future of mobility. Our 2,000 associates around the world are passionate about making the connected world. By continuously expanding the reach of our data enabled cognitive technologies into everything we do, we deliver personalized, performance-enhanced and sustainable mobility. For more information, please visit www.techniplas.com.