Voodoo Manufacturing
Voodoo Manufacturing Project Skywalker
The Skywalker system consists of nine 3D printers mounted on server racks, a track where the robot can deposit harvested plates to be collected by employees, and a plate ‘hopper’ that feeds new, clean plates to the robot as needed.
Voodoo Manufacturing has announced the completion of a fully functional robot-operated 3D printer cluster which is expected to reduce costs by 90% over the next five years.
Entitled Project Skywalker, the use of a collaborative robotic arm will enable the Brooklyn-based 3D printing factory to automate labour intensive processes. One of these processes is plate harvesting, the act of removing and replacing a printer’s build plate once a print is finished.
A particular advantage of Project Skywalker is the time-saving benefits. Voodoo’s factory employees spend approximately 15% of their working hours harvesting process. The Skywalker system consists of nine 3D printers mounted on server racks, a track where the robot can deposit harvested plates to be collected by employees, and a plate ‘hopper’ that feeds new, clean plates to the robot as needed. Voodoo’s internal software provides a platform for the printers and the robotic arm to communicate. Notifications can be sent and received when a print is complete and the arm is required to harvest, and when the arm has finished and a printer can begin its next job.
Voodoo Manufacturing
Voodoo Manufacturing Project Skywalker
Entitled Project Skywalker, the use of a collaborative robotic arm will enable the Brooklyn-based 3D printing factory to automate labour intensive processes, such as plate harvesting.
Marked as a key area for automation, Voodoo expect productivity to increase substantially.
“Seeing it fully operational for the first time was amazing,” explained Jonathan Schwartz, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Voodoo Manufacturing. “We ran it unmanned overnight, and in the morning it had been producing parts for 14 hours straight. We’re now excited to deploy it at scale and increase our factory’s capacity by close to 400%.”
With the assistance of robotics, Voodoo is aiming to create a ‘lights-out’ process – an autonomous system without human intervention that can run efficiently overnight. Voodoo expect a fully-automated 3D printing factory to allow the company to produce a greater output with competitive pricing and shorter lead times compared to injection moulding.
Voodoo Manufacturing
Voodoo Manufacturing Project Skywalker
“We ran it unmanned overnight, and in the morning it had been producing parts for 14 hours straight." - Jonathan Schwartz, Voodoo Manufacturing.
“We had to prove to ourselves that we could pull this off,” said Max Friefeld, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Voodoo Manufacturing. “Honestly, the results blew me away. This is the future of how we will run our factory. Our goal is to reduce costs by 90% and compete with injection moulding for runs of up to 100,000 units.”
The automation of labour processes is an item on the agenda of most manufacturers around the world. It has been estimated that 1.3 million industrial robots will be placed into factories by 2018. While, it could save manufacturers billions of dollars, it is a major concern for industrial factory workers.
“We are excited to participate in what we view as a fundamental industry transition that will define the way we make things for the foreseeable future,” Schwartz added. “However, this will most certainly create a new world economy where manual labour becomes automated in the majority of factories. We respect that this is a problem, so we all have a lot to talk about.”
