It is true that sales of public additive firms that were focused on prototyping fell during the pandemic. Markforged’s manufacturing capabilities and ability to help customers with mission-critical projects allowed it to continue growing.
Shai Terem, an Australian researcher on additive manufacturing said that Australia is not behind other countries in adopting it.
“I think there’s an internal driver in Australia which combines innovation culture with real manufacturing capabilities,” Terem said. “For Markforged, we are manufacturing- focused and in Australia, there is a real need and real adoption.”
Terem sees two key barriers in the adoption and success of additive technologies. These are the technological sophistication and effectiveness as well as the knowledge of users. Markforged places importance on industry collaboration to accelerate the application of its unique technology, which is why the CEO recently visited Victoria’s Swinburne University.
“The engineers of the future play a huge role in advancing this technology,” he said.
“Today, most of the decision makers in the manufacturing world have grey-hair and weren’t exposed to additive when they were in university themselves. Even worse, they may have ventured into additive when the technology was poor and they lost trust.”
“The new generation is what’s making the difference. It’s important to collaborate with as many education facilities as we can and teach them what can be done in designing for additive manufacturing, which is very different from designing for traditional manufacturing. We have seen many examples of young engineers entering the workforce and almost immediately driving cost savings for manufacturers because of their knowledge.”
Markforged, like universities, has strong relationships with the government and industry associations. Part of this effort is pushing the boundaries of technology with IMCRC, AMGC.
“They have a direct link and are directly involved with shaping Australia’s future budgets, but also their mission is to work with politicians to tell them how Australia is really reinventing manufacturing,” Richard Elving noted.
“We are trying to do something very significant, something some people don’t believe can be done. It requires a mega effort and collaboration in order to change an industry, which is why universities and government is important.”
The biggest, most capable printer yet Markforged’s latest printer, the FX20, brings the Digital Forge and Continuous Fibre Reinforcement to a new realm of parts, problems and industries. Markforged’s FX20 printer was designed to produce high-strength parts for the energy, aerospace and defense industries.
Adriano Di Pietro (Director of AIR Hub) said that the printer’s state-of-the art capabilities will make a significant impact on Australian business.
“AIR Hub is bringing industry together with cutting edge technology to support the growth of aviation and aerospace in Australia,” he said. “We’re proud to be hosting Australia’s first openly accessible FX20 in Swinburne’s Factory of the Future.”
The FX20 prints nearly five times larger builds and is up to eight times faster than Markforged’s existing line of composite printers. It also features a heated build chamber capable of maintaining a temperature of up to 200°C to print flame-retardant, high- performance thermoplastic material.
(From the left) Swinburne University.
“There are multiple differentiators for the FX20 compared to our original solution,” he began. “The first is it’s much faster, which helps customers to really push the envelope in production. We can no longer make parts that are smaller than a shoebox. It is also the first time that we are able to print high-temperature materials. We believe that with the FX20 with continuous fibres in heightened materials, which are lighter, stronger, easy to fabricate and cheaper with no corrosion, we can really push the envelope into these industries.”
Markforged is home to more than 10,000 connected printers around the world. All these systems, including both composites and metal solutions, are connected through the company’s Digital Forge, a digital manufacturing workflow composed of software, printers, and materials working seamlessly on a unified platform. This system was designed to be integrated into existing manufacturing systems. It eliminates barriers between functionality and design, and generates and analyzes data regarding real usage.