Wipro 3D, IISc develop India's first industrial-grade metal 3D printer

Wipro 3D, the additive manufacturing (AM) arm of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIN), has developed India’s first industrial-grade metal 3D printer in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

The 3D printer, which works on Selective Electron Beam Melting technology, will cater to the aerospace, defence and oil & gas sectors. It will also find application in the medical implants segment once commercialised.

“Our intent is to offer niche 3D applications to customers and offer it as a part of indigenisation of technology for the country. We have plans to commercialize the product in the next 6-12 months,” said Ajay Parikh, Vice President and Business Head, Wipro 3D.

It took the company around 20 months to build the prototype. However, once the machine benchmarking is complete, the Bengaluru-headquartered company said it would be able to put together a printer in 4-6 months.

The price of the printer has not been finalised yet but a similar product manufactured in the US or Europe costs anywhere between euro 1-1.5 million.

"We are happy to see our collaboration with Wipro 3D has culminated in this product development," said Anurag Kumar, Director, IISc.

Wipro 3D, which came into being 5 years ago, provides a full suite of offerings to clients looking to leverage additive manufacturing. This includes, consulting, research, designing components, helping selection of metals, optimisation, testing and finally manufacturing.

General Electric, one of the pioneers of additive manufacturing, is also looking at India as a market for these printers, showing that the demand for precision additive manufacturing in India is on the rise.