Boosting Margins to 3D Print the Summer Home

Wood, metal, and advanced composites are finding new ways to bond in 3D printing applications. Industrials are looking to build digital solutions to boost revenues and margins.

Sep 01, 2024

Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

In the machinery industry, digital solutions leaders outperform on total shareholder return by 100%. Leaders scale digital solutions successfully by focusing on two questions: For which customers are we among the most relevant suppliers, and what solutions would solve the problems these customers face?

Over in the commodity PVC plastic business, Shin-Etsu’s operating profit margin of 32% beats the 28% five-year average at Apple through:

Vertically integrated production from raw materials of chlorine and ethylene derived from petroleum and natural gas.
In-house engineering to launch factories in the shortest amount of time possible.
Sales intelligence, such as identifying which competitors are having procurement issues or which markets are slowing down or heating up, and working to find customers willing to buy as much PVC as possible for as high a price as possible.

Kaizen Blitz

🚦 Andon Status
- 🟡 Intel Considers Options Such as a Foundry Split
📊 Survey Says
- Manufacturers are embracing AI as a technology of the present, not just the future per a recent survey by Universal Robots.
🗣️ Town Hall
- Why Honeywell has placed such a big bet on gen AI
- Founder of Boston Dynamics Sees Humanoid Robots Not a Practical Tool for Productivity
🏭💰 Production Planning
- Samsung SDI finalizes deal with GM to build $3.5 bln joint EV battery factory in Indiana, USA
- Philip Morris International’s Swedish Match Affiliate with $232 Million Investment in Kentucky, USA which produces ZYN nicotine pouches to help meet the growing demand from legal-age consumers switching from cigarettes or other traditional tobacco products.
- Nippon Steel Announces Transformative Investments at U. S. Steel's Mon Valley Works and Gary Works
🏢💸 Corporate Development
- Nikon Invests in New Venture Fund – aims to accelerate innovation to enhance Nikon's technological innovation in several fields of strategic interest.
- $200M redalpine Capital VII (RAC VII) seeks to back European companies with a “tech hedge”—a significant, defensible advantage that is 10x better than their competitors.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

Here’s What the Inside of an Airbus Factory Looks Like

🏭 Vertical: Aerospace
🏢 Organizations: Airbus

An Airbus A321neo has just under half a million pieces, from the seven sections of fuselage down to the rivets used to secure its surfaces, making it one of the most complex jigsaw puzzles ever created. As well as needing to be combined, all the components have to be verified, tested, and recorded in a logbook that never leaves the aircraft. It catalogs the history and traceability of all its components.

More than half of the A320s produced by Airbus are assembled in Hamburg, which produces more than 30 aircraft per month. There are several assembly lines working in parallel on different planes, but the most innovative part of the operation here is in Hall 245. Since it began operations in 2018, this hall has been one of the most advanced manufacturing environments in the global aircraft industry. Two gigantic robots that move on seven axes drill holes in the fuselage, while a series of mobile tooling platforms move around the aircraft to complete other elements of the assembly, their positions controlled by a laser-guided automated positioning system. Together these automated machines speed up production—a massive benefit given the demand for the A320 family of aircraft.

How the Air Force Is Using AI to Fix Supply Chain Challenges

Mighty Buildings to use Honeywell technology to 3D print homes

✍️ Author: Edward Wakefield
🔖 Topics: Additive Manufacturing, Partnership
🏢 Organizations: Mighty Buildings, Honeywell

Mighty Buildings, a 3D printing construction technology provider, is set to use Honeywell Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent (LBA) as a key component in the material it uses to build 3D printed homes. Honeywell’s low-global warming potential (GWP) technology will replace traditional foam insulation – helping Mighty Buildings reduce emissions and produce strong, energy-efficient building panels.

The 3D printed panels developed using Solstice LBA will be manufactured at Mighty Buildings’ production facility in Monterrey, Mexico. The facility currently has capacity to print enough panels for two homes per day, and Mighty Building’s total construction time for a 3D printed home is often less than a week. Once complete, these homes require less energy for heating and cooling than those built with other commonly used blowing agents due to Solstice LBA’s ability to provide better thermal insulation.

3D Spark CEO Ruben Meuth on creating the 'Google Maps for manufacturing'

AI finds a cheaper way to make green hydrogen

✍️ Author: Victoria Schramm
🔖 Topics: Green Hydrogen
🏢 Organizations: University of Toronto, University of Saskatchewan

Researchers at the University of Toronto are using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs in the search for sustainable energy. They used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) to confirm that an AI-generated “recipe” for a new catalyst offered a more efficient way to make hydrogen fuel.

To create green hydrogen, you pass electricity that’s been generated from renewable resources between two pieces of metal in water. This causes oxygen and hydrogen gases to be released. The problem with this process is that it currently requires a lot of electricity and the metals used are rare and expensive.

The AI program the team developed took over 36,000 different metal oxide combinations and ran virtual simulations to assess which combination of ingredients might work the best. Abed then tested the program’s top candidate in the lab to see if its predictions were accurate. The alloy, a combination of the metals ruthenium, chromium, and titanium in specific proportions, was a clear winner, according to Abed. “The computer’s recommended alloy performed 20 times better than our benchmark metal in terms of stability and durability,” said Abed. “It lasted a long time and worked efficiently.”

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

Markforged Introduces The World’s First Metal & Advanced Composite Industrial 3D Printer

🏢 Organizations: Markforged

Markforged (NYSE: MKFG), the company strengthening manufacturing resiliency by enabling industrial production at the point of need, announced the FX10 Metal Kit, a print engine that brings metal printing capability to the FX10. With this kit, the FX10 becomes the world’s first industrial 3D printer that can print both metal filaments and composites with continuous fiber reinforcement.

The FX10 Metal Kit consists of a swappable print engine that includes a metal-specific print head, material feed tubes, routing back, and dual pre-extruders. An FX10 can be swapped between metal and composite as many times as needed, and the swap takes about 15 minutes.

No glue required: Wood and metal bonded with sound and 3D printing

✍️ Author: Michael Franco
🏢 Organizations: Graz University of Technology

While there has been quite a push to create more eco-friendly adhesives, from such things as a reusable glue made from plants to an adhesive that biodegrades after use, researchers at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria took another approach. Two other approaches, actually, both of which achieved bonds between a variety of wood types and two types of plastics, stainless steel, and a titanium alloy.

In the first, the researchers used a 3D-printing process they termed “Addjoining.” They were able to 3D print the various materials directly onto a piece of untreated wood in such a way that they penetrated the pores in the wood, forming a bond in much the same way an adhesive would. The team then snapped the bond apart. The second joining technique the researchers came up with was called “Ultrasonic Joining.” It used an instrument called a sonotrode to send high-frequency, low vibration waves through the juncture of the wood and the metal polymers. This created friction, which generated enough heat to bond the two materials together.

The team believes that the 3D-printed bonds could be made even stronger if the wood was etched using lasers to create more complex structures or larger pores for the other material to bond with.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

Amazon acquihiring and licensing Covariant’s robotic foundation models

🔖 Topics: Acquisition
🏢 Organizations: Covariant, Amazon

Amazon is receiving a non-exclusive license to Covariant’s robotic foundation models. Covariant’s models will help drive new ways to generalize how our robotic systems learn and provide dynamic opportunities for using automation to make our operations safer and better deliver for customers. As part of this effort, Amazon plans to grow its AI and robotics team in the Bay Area to tap into world class talent and advance the latest in automation.

Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, Rocky Duan, and a group of research scientists and engineers (around a quarter of Covariant’s current employees) will join Amazon’s Fulfillment Technologies & Robotics Team to help drive the development and implementation of Covariant’s technology within Amazon’s operations and continue to develop innovative AI solutions. Covariant will continue to serve its dozens of customers and build on Covariant’s technology that supports fulfillment and distribution center automation.

Swiss-Mile secures over €19.8 million in seed funding, co-led by Jeff Bezos and HongShan

🔖 Topics: Funding Event
🏢 Organizations: Swiss-Mile, Bezos Expeditions, HongShan, Amazon, ETH Zurich

Swiss-Mile, a pioneering company connecting AI with the physical world using autonomous machines, announced the successful closure of over €19.8 million seed funding round. This round was notably co-led by Jeff Bezos, through Bezos Expeditions, and HongShan, with additional participation from the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Armada Investment. The round also saw continued support from existing investor Linear Capital, underscoring the strong belief in Swiss-Mile’s vision and potential.

Swiss-Mile is a spin-off from the renowned Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich and has been at the forefront of integrating artificial neural networks into robots with both legs and wheels. The company’s technology allows robots to walk, drive, stand upright on two legs, and manipulate objects with wheeled end effectors. This versatility is key to addressing real-world challenges in both mobility and manipulation, positioning Swiss-Mile as a leader in the next wave of robotic automation.

PuriFire Energy raises £2.7M to cut emissions by producing green hydrogen and methanol

🏢 Organizations: PuriFire Energy, HICO Investment Group

PuriFire Energy, a Cambridge-based producer of sustainable green hydrogen and methanol solutions, has raised £2.7 million in seed funding. The round was led by HICO Investment Group with participation from Bulnes Capital, R&R Investments, and Abhishek Desai.

The company will combine the Seed investment with a £525K grant from Innovate UK to set up a pilot project by mid-2025 to convert anaerobic digestion liquid digestate and other wet feedstocks into green methanol using its patented technology.

RightHand Robotics Secures New Funding as Yaro Tenzer is Appointed CEO

🏢 Organizations: RightHand Robotics

RightHand Robotics, Inc., a leader in autonomous AI robotic picking solutions for order fulfillment, is thrilled to announce that it has secured new funding, further strengthening the company’s position in the market. In conjunction with this funding, co-founder Yaro Tenzer has been appointed as CEO, effective August 1, 2024. Former CEO Brian Owen is planning to continue his involvement as a trusted advisor and investor.

The restructuring and funding round highlight RightHand Robotics’ commitment to delivering cutting-edge solutions that drive efficiency, autonomy, and order accuracy in order fulfillment. Arunas Chesonis, a partner at Safar Partners, added, “We are excited to continue supporting the company on its journey as the obvious choice for piece-picking robotics in supply chain logistics.”

Read more at RightHand Robotics Latest

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