Hasbro Europe, part of Hasbro Inc., a world leader in toys and games for children and families, has installed the ThermoJet solid object printer at its European headquarters in Uxbridge, England.

As the manufacturer of some of the world’s most popular products—including Pokemon, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Action Man, Tweenies, Cluedo and Monopoly—Hasbro Europe introduces more than 1,000 new toy and game products to the market annually. At least 50% of these toys and games are designed from scratch at the Uxbridge site. This means that Hasbro is faced with the continual challenge of developing new and exciting products to keep the company at the front of the toys and games market.

“We are constantly looking for ways to both reduce cost and improve time to market cycles…the ThermoJet printer is already making a significant contribution in these areas.”
                           John Sherring, Hasbro Europe

Fast and Inexpensive Models
Ever since the system was installed, it has provided Hasbro’s engineering department with significant benefits, specifically in terms of time and cost savings in the product development process. As a result of these benefits, the company has optimized product-to-market schedules.

Design Engineer Chris Evenden explains that, “Prior to the installation of the ThermoJet printer, development team members from non-engineering disciplines sometimes experienced difficulties with product visualization, as the product could only be viewed in 3-D on a computer screen, or as a 2-D drawing. In some instances we would produce a physical model, typically using a service bureau. However, this route was both costly and time consuming, so we avoided it unless it was absolutely necessary.”

He continues, “With the ThermoJet printer we are able to quickly, easily and at relatively low cost produce models of the product components to use as visualization tools at the review meetings.

“The ability to actually pick up and examine the component or product greatly enhances
understanding across the whole team, enabling any problems or areas for further development to be identified much sooner in the design engineering process. This also helps us to speed up the development cycle and minimize downstream costs, as any design data inaccuracies can be easily identified through examination of the ThermoJet printer model and corrected before progressing to final prototypes and production tooling.”

Typically a new product comes into the engineering department as either basic 2-D drawings or a concept model, which has been approved by R&D for general aesthetics and play value.

The first stage in the engineering department is to take this information and create 3-D geometry for each of the product components. This is done using the latest ProEngineer CAD package, with the company operating 10 seats in total, running on UNIX workstations.

Throughout the engineering development process, each product is subject to ongoing design reviews by all members of the team. This is another area where 3-D printing technology is proving particularly useful.

Hasbro Europe has been making full use of the printer since its installation, utilizing features such as its multiple component build facility, often to output all major components required for one product in a single build session.

The company has found that the printer output withstands the rigors of handling during review meetings without any problems, and on some occasions, has even been able to perform “clip fit” tests, to review alignment of fittings and joins in multiple component products.

Staying Competitive
John Sherring, Technical Director at Hasbro Europe explains, “The toys and games business is a very fast moving, highly competitive environment. The lifecycles of many products are relatively short and, across Hasbro overall, one third of the product range changes every year. In some leading toy brands, like Action Man, 85% of the product line is new each year. In all cases, consumer attraction is obviously one of the most important criteria. However, as with any business, we are constantly looking for ways to both reduce costs and improve time to market cycles.

“The ThermoJet printer is already making a significant contribution in these areas and sits well within the design office environment, where its operation is in fact quieter than our standard output plotters.”