Functional parts from Ultimaker 3D printers used in Heineken brewery

Dutch 3D printer manufacturer Ultimaker has announced that compatriot brewing company Heineken has been using its printers to produce custom tools and machine parts for its brewery in Sevilla, Spain. The brewery produces around 400mn litres of beer for Heineken-owned brands per year, proof if it was needed that 3D printed parts can hold their own even in high volume manufacturing arenas. Heineken’s engineers have been using Ultimaker’s machines for about a year, starting with the Ultimaker 2+ and later upgrading to a set of larger, enterprise-ready S5 machines.
Isabelle Haenen, of Global Supply Chain Procurement at Heineken, said: We’re still in the first stages of 3D printing, but we’ve already seen a reduction of costs in the applications that we found by 70-90% and also a decrease of delivery time of these applications of 70-90%. Local manufacturing helps us a lot in increasing uptime, efficiency and output. We use 3D printing to optimise the manufacturing line, create maintenance and quality control tools, and create tools for our machines which help us increase safety for our people. I think there will be even more purposes in the future.