Luzhou Longmatan 3D printing production line cuts casting cycle from months to one day

Sichuan Haigong Technology Co., Ltd. has commissioned a binder jetting sand-casting production line at its facility in Luzhou Longmatan District, Sichuan Province. The line, the core of a ¥-denominated Phase II technical upgrade launched in April 2025 and completed in April 2026, replaces traditional mold-making with direct 3D printing of sand molds and cores from CAD models. Deputy General Manager Pu Yujie stated the line reduces new-product lead time from one-to-two months to as little as one day, while enabling raw-material recycling. The company serves shipbuilding, heavy truck, nuclear power, petrochemical, rail transit, and aerospace customers, exporting to Finland, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.

This commissioning is a concrete instance of the Chinese localization arc (P2) in binder jetting for sand casting — a process segment where Chinese integrators have moved from matching Western specs to integrating materials, service capacity, and customer references. The line addresses the industrial-tooling and energy verticals, where sand-casting remains the dominant near-net-shape process for large, complex metal parts. By collapsing the mold-development cycle from weeks to days, Haigong directly attacks the cost and lead-time barriers that have limited AM adoption in traditional foundries. The broader Longmatan cluster, which the district government is positioning for aerospace, medical, and consumer applications, mirrors the pattern seen in other Chinese AM hubs: government-coordinated upstream supplier mapping and local procurement networks to reduce dependency on distant supply chains.

For buyers evaluating sand-casting AM, the practical takeaway is that cycle-time compression is now available from Chinese suppliers at a cost structure that Western binder jetting OEMs (voxeljet, ExOne/Desktop Metal) cannot easily match. Haigong's next step — scaling the line and progressively replacing conventional mold tooling — will test whether the technology can sustain quality consistency across a broader part mix. The district's stated roadmap into aerospace and medical applications is aspirational; sand-casting AM has a proven industrial-tooling use case, but qualification for flight-critical or implant-grade parts remains a separate, longer grind.