Last week, HP Inc. opened the doors of its 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Barcelona, Spain. According to HP, the campus is one largest and most advanced research and development facilities for 3D printing and additive manufacturing. The new center brings together hundreds of additive manufacturing experts in more than 150,000 square feet of innovation space – about the size of three football fields. The company notes that the goal of the center is to transform the way the world designs and manufactures products.

For years, Barcelona civic leaders have worked to position the city as a technology hub for Europe. The city is home to major technology trade shows, including IoT World Conference and Mobile World Congress. “Barcelona has always played a significant role in our journey to accelerate the future of digital manufacturing,” Ramon Pastor, GM and global head of plastics solutions for 3D printing and digital manufacturing at HP, told Design News. “Barcelona is at the forefront of innovation, helping us reinvent manufacturing and playing a key role in the development of our most impressive and advanced 3D printing technologies like Multi Jet Fusion and Metal Jet.”

Collaboration Space for Partners

HP’s 3+ acre Barcelona facility is dedicated to the development of the company’s industrial 3D printing portfolio, providing a large-scale factory environment to collaborate with partners on digital manufacturing technologies. The center is designed to bring together digital manufacturing experts in systems engineering, data intelligence, software, materials science, design, and applications. “At the new facility, we’re uniting experts across multiple disciplines with the goal to bring new capabilities to our customers and further advance the role of emerging technologies, like 3D printing, within the larger digital manufacturing landscape,” said Pastor.

The facility will integrate flexible and interactive layouts, co-development environments, and fleets of the latest HP plastics and metals 3D production systems. Companies such as BASF, GKN Metallurgy, Siemens, Volkswagen, and others across the automotive, industrial, healthcare, and consumer goods sectors will collaborate with HP on new 3D printing and digital manufacturing innovations.

HP sees these collaborations as essential to expanding the capabilities and usefulness of 3D printing. “We believe that the key to wider adoption of industrial 3D printing lies in greater ecosystem collaboration – through the development of 3D technologies, software innovation, materials development, data intelligence, and parts production,” said Pastor. “With the opening of the center, we’re fostering a place to collaborate with our partners and experts to create solutions that enable the growth of digital manufacturing.”

An Eco-Friendly Facility

In a statement, HP noted that the facility was designed to reflect the company’s commitment to the environment by incorporating a photovoltaic canopy to provide 110kW of power, rainwater reuse for irrigation and sanitary purposes, HVAC and natural light optimization, and eco-friendly construction materials with a goal of achieving a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification. The goal is to use 100% renewable energy in its global operations over time, with a target of 60% by 2025.

The Barcelona center was created to expand HP’s global 3D printing and digital manufacturing footprint and enhance existing innovation locations in Oregon, California, and Washington. The company also recently a Singapore location in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF). The collaboration was created to drive 3D printing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, materials and applications, and cybersecurity innovations.

By: DocMemory
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