Tsubaki Kabelschlepp cuts development cycles by combining 3D printing and scanning for energy chain production

Tsubaki Kabelschlepp, a German manufacturer of energy chains and cable guidance systems, has integrated additive manufacturing and 3D scanning into its development workflow, achieving a measurable reduction in iteration cycles. During the parallel development of its TKHP 85 and TKHP 90 high-performance energy chain series, the company combined FDM/FFF printing of functional prototypes with full-field 3D scanning to verify geometry against CAD models. This hybrid approach reduced correction cycles from eight or nine down to four, and the entire development was completed in under six months. The company uses additive manufacturing exclusively for prototyping and low-volume custom projects, while serial production remains with injection molding for the TKHP line.

This case is a textbook example of additive manufacturing functioning as a development accelerator rather than a production technology, a role that remains economically significant but often invisible in market-size discussions. Tsubaki Kabelschlepp sits in the industrial tooling and custom-engineering segment, where the value of AM lies in compressing time-to-market and reducing tooling risk, not in displacing high-volume processes. The integration of 3D scanning with printing closes a common feedback loop in polymer AM: printed parts often deviate from CAD due to shrinkage and warpage, and scanning provides immediate, quantitative deviation data that speeds up design convergence. This mirrors patterns seen in aerospace and medical prototyping, where the combination of printing and metrology is becoming a standard workflow for qualification.

The practical takeaway is that for mid-volume industrial component makers, the ROI of additive manufacturing is increasingly found in the development phase, not in end-part production. Tsubaki Kabelschlepp has demonstrated that a disciplined, scan-verified prototyping loop can cut development time by roughly a third while reducing material waste from intermediate tooling iterations. The company’s next challenge is to scale this workflow from a single product line to a broader portfolio without inflating engineering overhead. For buyers evaluating AM for similar applications, the key metric is not print speed or build volume, but the number of design iterations eliminated per project.