New machine does four-hour job in 20 minutes
Southland manufacturer Fi Innovations aims to automate its entire workflow. Uma Ahmed reports.
Fi Innovations has added another New Zealand one-of-a-kind machine to its Southland factory.
Owner Gareth Dykes said the automated de-powdering machine arrived last week.
It helped the company to get rid of residual powder on items left on 3D-printed parts.
The machine was worth about $200,000 and was a game changer for the industry because of how much time it saved, he said.
Previously, workers had to manually blast each 3D-printed part, which could take up to five hours to do.
Now, multiple parts could be blasted at the same time, he said.
‘‘Beforehand, we were having to manually blast [leftover powder] . . . So someone was having to stand at the blast unit for four to five hours and manually blast each part,’’ he said.
The machine takes just 20 minutes to do the job and was automated, Dykes said.
The company has three 3D printers and two post-process machines in total, worth about $5 million, and most of the equipment is the only one of its kind in use in New Zealand or Australasia.
Dykes introduced the automated de-powdering machine yesterday during the company’s first Industry 4.0 Demonstration Network Programme site visit.
The four-year programme has been running for the past two years. It is a central government initiative to help businesses realise the benefits of a range of digital technologies that will enhance manufacturing performance, output, monitoring and control.
The factory visit was a chance for representatives from businesses in different industries to see the software, Oqton, that Fi Innovations uses to interact with customers. They were also shown the functionalities of its green room and introduced to its machines with a demonstration of its 3D scanner.
Dykes said the company aimed to switch its whole workflow to automation. ‘‘We’re trying to automate as much as we can, right from when the file or the order comes in . . . It spits back an instant quote and then [continues] right through the whole process . . . [until] it goes into the courier bag.’’
He thought artificial intelligence and machine learning integration would help with that.
Fi Innovations would always look to add new technology because its vision was to become an industry leader and that meant constant change, he said.
The company intended to recruit five new employees this year, and it has been a struggle.
‘‘For us, certainly around the 3D side of things, sometimes [it is hard to recruit] . . . There are not hundreds of people out there with the right skills because this is such a new industry,’’ Dykes said.
The company had managed to recruit one person so far, he said.