Divergent 3D, Los Angeles, entered into a global development partnership with engineering research and development firm Altran, Burlington, Mass., in which Altran will provide support to Divergent 3D to accelerate implementation and licensing of its manufacturing technology platform. Together, the companies will help automakers harness the power of 3D printing to unleash design innovation while slashing costs, time-to-market, and environmental impact.
Divergent 3D is commercializing a software-hardware platform for manufacturing that leverages 3D metal printing. Its technology can reduce vehicle structure weight of a standard five passenger car by over 50% and reduce the number of parts per vehicle by over 75%. Just as importantly, it can reduce the upfront capital cost required for hard metal tooling and stamping equipment (along with the associated factory costs) by up to 10 times or more. The cost implications of Divergent 3D’s technology for automakers are significant.
Rob Vatter, CEO of Altran notes that, “by teaming up with Divergent, we are taking a step to further develop its presence in the U.S. Divergent is a like-minded critical thinker who is as focused as we are on addressing and managing complexity for clients. This partnership will streamle the process of creating and integrating complex systems that will make up the cars of the near and distant future. At the same time, Divergent 3D’s platform will help us optimize our customers’ value chains by lowering costs and speeding up development timelines.”
“Altran’s world-class engineering expertise and comprehensive approach to creating the vehicle of the future are an ideal match for our technology,” says Kevin Czinger, CEO of Divergent 3D. “Our green manufacturing approach provides a complete technology platform to dramatically reduce per-vehicle and upfront capital costs and environmental impact. Altran and Divergent 3D can help automakers across North America quickly develop new, much more efficient vehicles at lower volumes than was economically viable in the past, helping to spark a new era of automotive innovation.”
