Schubert Additive Solutions wins the Smart Solution Award 2020 for PARTBOX

This year's winners of the Supply Chain Award and the Smart Solutions Award were honoured at the EXCHAinge 2020 trade fair on 10 November. Schubert Additive Solutions GmbH won the latter for its "PARTBOX" part streaming platform. This enables the 3D printing of format, spare and wear parts at the touch of a button directly at the customer's premises.

The specialist for additive manufacturing technology beat projects from strong competitors such as Heureka Business Solutions, Daimler Trucks and Waku Robotics in the voting by the expert and public jury. "We are very proud that PARTBOX has been recognised as a smart solution by the experts at EXCHAiNGE. This proves that Logistics 4.0 is more than just the digitalisation of material flows and the automation of systems and processes," said Marcus Schindler, Managing Director of Schubert Additive Solutions GmbH. "The intelligent networking of different areas, in our case production with logistics, is the key to this. In addition to better and more efficiently designed parts, 3D printing also opens up new perspectives with tangible benefits for logistics."

Winner of the Smart Solution Award — The joy is written all over their faces: Schubert Additive Solutions receives the Smart Solution Award 2020, which is accepted by Marcus Schindler (3rd from left) and Jörg Brenner (4th from left), both Managing Directors of Schubert Additive Solutions GmbH.

Production with a commercially available 3D printer

The keyword is "on demand". Electronic design data can be retrieved from a digital warehouse and produced anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. The young spin-off of the packaging machine manufacturer Gerhard Schubert GmbH enables access to tested and manufacturer-certified print data. All customers need is a standard filament 3D printer and the PARTBOX. This has LTE access and is directly and securely connected to the digital warehouse. Anyone can produce format parts, spare parts and wear parts themselves in any desired batch size according to the motto "Click & Print". Schubert Additive Solutions also supports its customers with its own additive manufacturing services and can draw on the experience of over 120,000 additively manufactured components in-house.

The team at Schubert Additive Solutions is convinced that at some point it will be normal to send data to customers instead of manufactured components.

"We are therefore working flat out on this vision of decentralised production. The award confirms that we are on the right track," Schindler continues. Jury member Harald Geimer, Partner at PwC Management Consulting, believes that PARTBOX even has great potential to revolutionise the supply chain and storage of spare parts: "At the same time, the company attaches great importance to safeguarding intellectual property when using its part streaming platform. This could be a viable solution for the future, especially with the growing demand for customised products and the resulting diversity of variants." Jury member Dr Petra Seebauer, co-editor of the trade magazine LOGISTIK HEUTE, agrees and adds: "Schubert's industrial 3D printing platform often offers customers more cost-effective and faster procurement of spare and wear parts. In addition, the reduction in transport routes has a positive impact on the environment and sustainability."

With its PARTBOX, Schubert Additive Solutions ensures that 3D printing on demand can become a reality for industrial customers from all sectors. Certified print jobs can be securely accessed via the platform with just one click.

[infotext icon] The Smart Solution Award takes place as part of the annual international specialist conference „EXCHAiNGE - The Supply Chainers Community“ and is presented for particularly innovative concepts that are still at an early stage of implementation. The award recognises solutions that have the potential to fundamentally change traditional value chains in the future. The award was presented for the third time in 2020[/infotext].