Case Study: Kratzer GmbH & Co. KG achieves 90% time savings on custom fixtures with Stratasys Fortus 450mc 3D printing

Kratzer Optimizes In-House Fixture Production with Additive Manufacturing

Kratzer GmbH & Co. KG, a family-run German manufacturer of highly complex turned, milled, honed and ground parts across industries, faced a growing bottleneck: producing custom fixtures on milling machines was slow, hard to customize and delayed production. To address this, the company evaluated additive manufacturing and selected the Stratasys Fortus 450mc™ 3D printer from Stratasys.

Using the Stratasys Fortus 450mc, Kratzer now prints durable, complex fixtures in hours instead of days (often in polycarbonate, ABS or ULTEM™), eliminating drawing and multi-part assembly steps and enabling fixtures that hold up to 30 parts for simultaneous laser engraving. The Stratasys solution delivered a next-day turnaround and around 90% time savings, dramatically improving throughput, reducing downtime and boosting shop-floor flexibility and training.

Kratzer GmbH & Co. KG

Christian Maier

Fixture Construction Division Manager and Training Supervisor