JANUS Engineering reduces the use of raw materials for 3D printing by 60 percent

JANUS Engineering (JANUS) leads French companies along the path of digital transformation as a Siemens Expert Partner using NX™ software for Design and NX for Manufacturing. NX is part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, the comprehensive and integrated portfolio of software, hardware and services. JANUS offers customers a seamless and holistic product development environment leveraging its team of specialists who provide consultation, implementation and training to ensure customers have the right solutions and are operational quickly.

JANUS’s pool of resources includes five offices strategically located throughout France with additional operations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and the United States. The teams within these locations strengthen the company’s research and development capabilities and help support any product development challenges JANUS’ customers face. JANUS regularly joins forces with other Siemens Expert Partners in France to ensure customers have access to various products and services from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio.

A powerhouse partner

JANUS has served its French customers since 2011, deploying NX solutions and providing automation programming, optimization and professional services. After experiencing success as a services provider, the company began selling NX directly to customers, becoming the first Siemens Expert Partner in the country to offer NX. This move paved the way for the company’s rapid growth and positioned it as the partner that companies turn to for advice, products and services related to design and manufacturing.

“Each customer has different requirements and we help implement CAD/CAM technologies to the customer’s specific process with system configuration, installation, training and coaching, support, software updates and adjustments,” says Nicolas Simon, director at JANUS. “We also provide expert consulting to develop approaches for implementing processes with the new technology.”

Over the years, JANUS has cemented its reputation as a software solution expert and a technology provider. Through its strategic collaboration with Siemens, JANUS developed several NX for Manufacturing modules. The company provides advanced solutions for additive manufacturing (AM), robotics, wire electrical discharge machining (EDM), postprocessing and G-code simulation. Many of its aerospace and industrial machinery industry customers trust JANUS to deliver solutions that enable customers to produce complex parts with unsurpassed quality and reliability through harsh conditions.

JANUS is also well-versed in using Teamcenter® software, Simcenter™ software, Opcenter™ software and Tecnomatix® software from Siemens Xcelerator portfolio.

Customers rely on specialized experts

When traditional milling software programs could not facilitate OPT’ALM’s unique manufacturing techniques, the company approached JANUS for help. OPT’ALM has two patented processes for directed energy deposition (DED) manufacturing. The company combines additive and traditional methods to produce parts used to maintain, repair and overhaul critical aircraft systems. To ensure certification of its parts, OPT’ALM must adhere to strict regulations and demonstrate that its processes and results are repeatable.

After an in-depth assessment of OPT’ALM’s needs, JANUS recommended using NX for Manufacturing for its multiaxis 3D printing capabilities and simulate and control DED machines. JANUS specialists led the NX deployment and developed a post to ensure a direct connection between NX data and OPT’ALM’s DED machinery.

“Unlike other solutions that adapt to the traditional 5-axis CAM machining approach to 3D printing, Siemens has developed tools devised for additive manufacturing and its specificities,” says Alexis Capoen, application engineer for JANUS.

After adopting NX, OPT’ALM experienced a 60 percent savings on the number of raw materials needed to finish parts. Using NX also helped them drastically reduce cycle times in some cases from several weeks to just a few days.

JANUS guides aerospace company through digital transformation

Armor Meca has a strong presence in France’s aerospace and defense, energy, marine and medical industries by providing complex parts made of alternative materials that are produced through additive manufacturing. Armor Meca was an early adopter of 5-axis machining modules. After consulting with JANUS, the company realized that it could use NX to perform advanced capabilities that were well-suited to its demanding manufacturing techniques and diverse materials. To create a seamless hand off from design to manufacturing, Armor Meca adopted NX for Design to prepare models for production.

JANUS introduced other Siemens Xcelerator solutions to optimize production line workflows and raw material management. It also implemented Teamcenter to replace Armor Meca’s file management system eliminating bottlenecks related to product data sharing. This led to better communication, revision control, traceability and more collaboration across teams. Since working with JANUS, Armor Meca has continued to grow its production, reduce production times and errors and develop higher quality products.

Using digitalization to help customers

The relationship with JANUS was so successful for Armor Meca that when two of the company’s top executives, brothers Olivier and Sébastien Colas, decided to pursue their dream of developing their line of golf putters, they went straight to JANUS.

The Colas brothers’ aerospace background provided the foundation to conceptualize putters using advanced production methods and lightweight materials. JANUS provided the digital tools to help the company design and machine the clubs with precision down to the nearest micron. Using NX and Teamcenter tools helped bring the Colas’ hand-drawn sketches to life.

“NX CAD is an integrated design solution that helps rationalize and speed up the process for developing innovative products,” says Simon. “Using NX CAM offers tools for machine tool programming, postprocessing and machining simulation that reduces the NC programming and machining times, produces top-quality parts and optimizes manufacturing resources.”

The results were better than the brothers had hoped. Although at first intending to build putters for personal use, the French-built ARGOLF clubs can now be found on golf courses worldwide.

JANUS introduces digital thread to medical device manufacturer

Recently, medical device manufacturer SLS France (SLS) enlisted JANUS to help standardize processes and boost efficiency across the product lifecycle. SLS employs several manufacturing methods to offer its customers customized and mass-produced products. Its products and processes are highly regulated, so SLS was careful to choose a partner that could meet its unique challenges.

JANUS introduced a digital thread composed of NX, Simcenter and Teamcenter to connect and streamline every aspect of the product development process. With this combination of Siemens Xcelerator products, SLS can produce and validate advanced designs and effortlessly transfer them to its mixed manufacturing environment all with the robust traceability required of medical device manufacturers. The company also improved its collaboration between divisions by eliminating data silos.

“Working with Siemens in close collaboration with JANUS is part of our continuing strategy to provide medical device customers a supplier with the latest 3D printing tools,” says Axel Dubois, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of SLS France.

As SLS continues to master its new digital tools, JANUS plans to provide continuous training so SLS can optimize its workflows and realize the maximum return-on-investment (ROI).

Collaborating in new ways

The experts at JANUS are not just successful working with customers, they are also well-versed in collaborating with other Siemens partners. In one instance, JANUS teamed up with fellow French expert partners FEALINX and SIGMEO to collaborate on a comprehensive digitalization strategy for Latitude, a startup company in the aerospace industry. Latitude builds nanosat launch systems, using fully 3D-printed engines to help its customers reach space. Before working with the team of partners, the company’s digital tools created information silos, resulting in an inefficient, rigid development ecosystem.

Latitude faced integration issues caused by an ecosystem of piecemealed point solutions. Together, JANUS, FEALINX and SIGMEO presented the company with a holistic solution to its problem. Each partner leveraged unique expertise to provide Latitude a connected development and manufacturing environment using NX, Teamcenter and Simcenter.

“Our relationship and collaboration with Siemens allow us to bring a common and critical eye to Siemens, too, as a force for improvement on various strategic subjects for the digitalization of our customers,” says Simon.

JANUS supported the NX implementation, which broke down several previous bottlenecks in the product lifecycle. Synchronous technology enables Latitude to design more intuitively and innovate faster. The company uses the additive manufacturing capabilities of NX to swiftly move from design to production. Also, Latitude can now share computer-aided design (CAD) files externally without file format barriers.