Yann Rageul, Commercial Leader EMEA & Asia at Stratasys speaks reduced lead times and tackling supply chain bottlenecks
Yann Rageul – speech preview
“So, if you look at traditional manufacturing, today, we actually have a very centralised production. Basically a facility which can be UK, but sometimes very far off in Asia, for instance, or in China. That means that we have a very long lead time for your product. And that can be a real bottleneck and a real issue.
“Today we see the price of container shipments going up extremely high, and it should also have an impact on inflation, as we all know we are facing right now in the UK.
“But with additive manufacturing, we are able actually to relocate the production near your customer, where you can actually also move to a digital inventory meaning that you don’t necessarily have to store spare parts in the warehouse – you can actually have the digital inventory ready on demand when needed by your customer.
“This is really really agile and can also significantly reduce your lead time. I will show you an example. Comparing injection moulding lead time versus additive manufacturing lead time, we will see the reduction is very crazy…
“Injection moulding lead times can typically be 12 weeks right now, maybe probably more like 20 weeks to get an injection mould done in Asia, for instance, and start waiting. So, during that timeframe, we are not able to produce any parts. With SAF technology, we can actually start producing the next day. Within 24 hours, you can have a first-class part that you can start to ship to your customers.”
Yann Rageul speaking at SYS | Stratasys Open Day 2022
Open Day Interview
“I think customers are here to explore the applications beyond prototyping. The world is moving. Additive manufacturing, especially as Stratasys solutions are really moving into the factory floor. And customers want to explore those.
“I think, there’s so many issues with supply chain today that, they are looking for solution today, not tomorrow, which works and technologies are proving time and time again, that they can not only work but they can provide significant cost benefits and agility, which is really the key in today’s world. These are the challenges we’re facing.”
On attending the SYS | Stratasys Open Day 2022:
“So far, I think it’s been really, really good. I’m very impressed by the setup of the facility, you know, the display of all the Stratasys technology is really fantastic. I think the event is going very well, I think the room is packed with a really impressive event, a lot of customers, really good interaction. I’m looking forward to speak more with the customers during the day.
“I think it [his speech] was really, really good, I think we had a great audience. You know, you could see people were really surprised, I could read from their expressions that they were shocked, especially when I was talking about the supply chain challenges and how our customers are already replacing traditional injection moulding process with SAF technology, for instance, or, you know, going into the tooling application and replacing small parts. I think the audience was surprised that the technology has moved from prototyping to real manufacturing applications.
