How Graphite Additive Manufacturing Has Increased Business Revenue with AMFG’s Workflow Software

Graphite Additive Manufacturing is an AM service provider with a mission to help its clients find the right industrial solutions with additive manufacturing.

Founded in 2012, the UK-based company has an extensive track record in supplying high-quality, additively manufactured parts to the world of motorsports and Formula One.

Since its founding, Graphite’s scope has expanded to also include the wider automotive, marine, aerospace and defence industries. It is also one of few service bureaus in the UK to develop and manufacture its own materials for end-part additive production.

In 2018 alone, the company produced over 45,000 parts for its clients.

• Industries: Motorsports/Formula One, Automotive, Marine, Aerospace, Defence
• Applications: Rapid prototyping, Jigs and fixtures, Tooling and mandrels, End-part production runs
• Technologies & Services: Stereolithography (SLA), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Selective Laser Melting (SLM), Post-processing/finishing

“Central to what we do is advising our clients on how to adapt their designs to maximise the strength, weight or cost-saving gains that 3D printing can offer them. We also collaborate on finding solutions to complex applications and tailoring our materials so that our clients can be certain that their parts will be fit for purpose.”

Jonathan Warbrick, Business Development Manager
 

The Challenge

 
Graphite Additive Manufacturing has two brands: Graphite, which serves the company’s industrial clients, and 3D Print Direct, which is targeted at individual designers, engineers and inventors.

Being able to efficiently process the different order values of the two segments was a key challenge the company faced. Graphite, therefore, needed to find a better way to manage its order management and quoting processes, and spend less time on manually processing orders.

“As the demand for our services was increasing, we recognised the need to automate our quoting and ordering process. We found that we were, for example, spending an equal amount of time processing a £10,000 order as we were on an order worth £50,” explains Jonathan. “We needed to find a way to better streamline the process for specific projects.”

“As the volume of enquiries we were starting to receive was increasing, we knew we needed to be able to respond instantly to our clients’ requests,” says Jonathan.

The Solution

 
The Graphite team recognised that software was needed to streamline and manage the company’s ordering workflow.

The company soon opted for AMFG’s workflow software, following a demonstration of the software platform in action. For Graphite, it was important to ensure ease-of-use for both the Graphite team and its customers.

“AMFG’s software has a really user-friendly interface, and it’s given us everything we need to streamline some of those lower-value orders and allow the project team to spend more time on projects requiring more in-depth technical help and assistance,” says Jonathan.

“We also liked the level of service we have received from AMFG — the communication and support has been fantastic. We can always pick up the phone, and it’s been great having training sessions with the AMFG team in person. We feel valued as a customer, which is what all customers want to feel.”

With the AMFG platform, including AMFG’s instant quotation tool, Graphite’s project team was able to:

• Process orders quickly and easily
• View project statuses and updates in real time
• Streamline the request to ordering workflow