Railway technology company Alstom extends its partnership with 3D Spark, a B2B manufacturing and procurement software company. For the next three years, Alstom will continue to use Alstom’s software that consists in identifying the ideal 3D printed part.

Their partnership started two years ago and quickly resulted in a cost-saving of €1.8M during the first months. Today, 3D Spark said their collaboration has already helped Alstom realize more than 15 million euros in cost savings, an impressive 2,600-month cut in lead times, and an 86% decrease in procurement efforts, setting new standards in rail sector manufacturing and procurement.

The advantages of 3D Spark’s advanced algorithms and AI-driven tools can be seen at three main levels: on the production front, at the procurement and at the sustainability levels.

On the production front, the implementation of 3D Spark’s solution has led to an 80% time reduction for manufacturability checks (DfM) and quoting, decreasing the number of iterations, interactions, and thus bottlenecks. These efficiency gains not only accelerated the production process but also enhanced Alstom’s capability to efficiently identify parts that can be printed in-house, promoting better capacity utilization of machines (CAPEX).

‍Regarding procurement, Alstom targets an 86% reduction in purchasing efforts by specifically reducing unnecessary Requests for Quotations (RFQ), a strategy made possible by 3D Spark’s ‘make or buy’ decision support. The software assists in evaluating in-house manufacturability and production costs vs. purchase prices and delivery times, eliminating efforts for external RFQs when in-house production is more viable.

When buying is more favourable, 3D Spark’s “Supplier Panel” makes supplier selection easy, providing a complete list of Alstom’s qualified suppliers, supporting with manufacturability assessments, automated target-pricing, and one-click RFQ sending, ensuring a more focused and efficient procurement process for buyer and seller. This strategy has led to a 20% decrease in part purchase prices, underscoring the cost benefits and efficiency improvements achieved.

Lastly, with the introduction of 3D Spark’s automatic CO2 footprint calculation for each production option at no additional effort, Alstom can align with EU directives like CSRD and CBAM. Not to mention that it can save €80-100 per ton in certificate costs, with an increase in savings expected as regulations evolve.

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