A research team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, is 3D printing unfurnished bathroom units in 12 hours or less.

In an effort to improve the production of Prefabricated Bathroom Units (PBUs), the NTU team, as well as Sembcorp Design and Construction and Sembcorp Architects & Engineers, additively manufactured PBUs 30% faster and lighter than conventional PBUs.

Dr. Tan Ming Jen, Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, NTU, who partially led this project, said, “By being able to print-on-demand, companies can save on their inventory costs as well a manpower costs, as they don’t have to hold as much stock and their workers can be redeployed to do higher-level tasks.”

“This approach improves the safety of the workplace since robots are doing the construction of the bathroom unit.”

3D printing a bathroom unit According to the NTU researchers, it has been a requirement for all non-landed residential Government Land Sale (GLS) sites in Singapore to use PBUs in its construction process as of 2014. Thus, to increase productivity for the country’s building and construction industry, additive manufacturing was applied. Traditionally, PBUs are cast from concrete and fully preassembled and fitted offsite, then lifted and installed in the desired building location. To reduce such labor, a 6-axis KUKA robotic arm capable of 3D printing concrete was utilized in a factory-controlled environment. Lim Tuang Liang, Executive Director at the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Coordination Office at the National Research Foundation (NRF), an organization which aided the establishment of NTU’s Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, explained: “Singapore’s strength in advanced manufacturing technologies is deepening not only in the area of research but also in the adoption and deployment of these technologies by our companies. This project is [a] testament to our strong research and translational capabilities in 3D printing.”