Page 14 - 3D Metal Printing Summer 2019

3D FEATURE
New Machine,
Focus on Titanium Spur Machine Shop’s Evolution
Israeli machining company Sharon Tuvia branched out into AM nearly a decade ago, and continues to add new technology
to meet aerospace needs and explore new markets.
BY LOUIS A. KREN, SENIOR EDITOR
When everything screams to call it quits, some heed the mes- sage. Others find another way. Sharon Tuvia and the Tuvia family is a story of the others.
Operating as a machine shop since 1959 in Nes Ziona, Israel, the company a decade back became frustrated with the low return on its labor-intensive produc- tion of high-precision parts. “We began looking for a new technology that we
could employ to produce metal parts,” explains Yair Sharon, who serves as co- CEO, together with his brother Ronen.
Disappointing revenues pushed Yair and his brother, Ronen, to explore additive manufacturing (AM), and today, as the company celebrates its golden anniver- sary, AM drives more than a quarter of its business.
Simply put, to survive and thrive, Sharon Tuvia had to find another way.
That spirit derives from earlier days for the family, when the stakes were much, much higher.
“Our grandfather started everything off for us when he opened a machining factory in his native Romania,” Yair says. “But dur- ing World War II, the government, collab- orating with the Nazis, took his factory away. After the war, he got his company back, but then the Communists took it.”
In 1951, seeing no future in Communist
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3DMPmag.com
Sharon Tuvia uses metal AM to produce prototypes and low- volume parts as well parts featuring complex geometries. The company’s investment in a new printer and software enabled consolidation of three separate software programs into one integrated solution.