Fieldmade digital inventories and 3D printing revolutionise spare parts supply

Onshore and offshore energy production often takes place in remote locations, such as oil platforms in the North Sea.

To ensure that production runs smoothly in these remote locations, companies stockpile large and costly inventories of spare parts. Many of the spare parts are never used, but the risks and consequences of inoperability are too large to ignore.

This makes the spare parts supply chain both costly and inefficient.

Additive manufacturing

To avoid unnecessary stockpiling of spare parts in remote locations, Fieldmade has developed the FIELDWARE® software platform for digital inventories and the NOMAD® system of deployable microfactories.

Fieldmade’s solution replaces the traditional warehouse with an on-demand NOMAD microfactory located near the source of need. In the microfactory, spare parts are constructed using additive manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing is more commonly known as 3D printing, although the term encompasses a broad scope of technologies. This means that a wide range of pre-defined spare parts can be manufactured on demand, on-site and in or near real-time.

The spare parts are manufactured using digital production files sent directly and securely from the original equipment manufacturer, ensuring that designs and specifications are accurately met.

Fieldmade’s additive manufacturing technologies include the full range of available material categories and industrial additive manufacturing processes.

Concrete benefits

Fieldmade’s technology enables a revolutionary optimising of supply chains, where spare parts are produced on demand, delivered in a digital format and manufactured on site.

Leveraging Fieldmade’s solutions in the energy sector, operators and service entities can potentially reduce their spare parts inventories by 10 to 25 per cent and repair costs by 50 to 90 per cent. Additionally, they can shrink their overall carbon footprint substantially through reduced waste and transport.

Market potential

Additive manufacturing could be a core element of future sustainable spare parts management, especially in ocean industries. The market is large in onshore and offshore energy production, particularly oil and gas, as well as in defence and shipping.

Fieldmade grew out of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), developing additive manufacturing for defence purposes. In 2016, Fieldmade was founded as an independent company.

Fieldmade has become one of the leaders in applied additive manufacturing in Scandinavia. The company is experiencing significant interest from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. It is working on expanding across additional sectors in Europe and the US.