Markforged has announced Eiger Fleet, a cloud-based software solution designed to accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing operations at scale.
Eiger Fleet looks to transform 3D printing from a small scale operation to a large globally-connected, distributed manufacturing fleet by giving organisations a secure, cloud-connected and centralised source of control over their Markforged 3D printers, users and part production.
As the newest addition to the Markforged Eiger software portfolio, Markforged says that Eiger Fleet is designed to help manufacturers adopt additive manufacturing technologies into their more traditional workflows by helping automate business processes through integrations with a company’s existing enterprise systems.
Eiger Fleet has enterprise level features to manage users, devices and data with greater control and efficiency to print parts on demand at the point of need, including:
- Control which part, build, devices, print operations and data are accessible to users according to job responsibilities and privileges by leveraging Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- Provide frictionless user and administrator experience through SAML Single Sign-On (SSO), where automated account provisioning reduces IT costs and easily and consistently enforces strong access policies with identity protection
- Connect, simplify and automate workflows with Eiger API, connecting their additive manufacturing processes to their existing enterprise software systems
- Seamlessly manage their entire digital inventory of parts, leveraging batch operations and organisation-wide presets
Easily track, analyse and share key performance indicators of time and cost savings from additive manufacturing
Markforged CTO David Benhaim said at the launch that: “Additive technology is transforming manufacturing around the world,”
“Eiger Fleet fuels the expansion of additive manufacturing by giving our customers the right set of control and management tools that address the concerns of security, quality management, auditing or user error.
“Our customers are able to grow their operations with the right level of control over quality and process. Eiger Fleet is setting the pace for what’s possible in the future of manufacturing, through cloud-enabled distributed manufacturing.”
Vestas Wind Systems A/S , has acted as a Beta customer for Eiger Fleet, using it to great effect to manage the production of parts and tools for their global fleet of wind turbines on Markforged 3D printers.
“Over the past several years, Direct Digital Manufacturing has evolved at Vestas to connect our factories around the world to support agile production of parts and tools on demand,” said Jeremy Haight, principal engineer, industrial automation and additive aanufacturing at Vestas.
“We depend on the Markforged platform with Eiger Fleet and Blacksmith to provide the centralised control, enterprise resource planning (ERP), asset management, and other system integration and print analysis for industrial grade additive manufacturing that our global business needs.”
With Eiger Fleet, Vestas says its teams have been able to order a part from their ERP system, creating a digitised Kanban inventory system, and have that part produced by a Markforged 3D printer nearest to them with the click of a button.
One lead time cutting example identified by Vestas is a marking tool critical for proper assembly of blades on its wind turbines that previously required a lead time of three weeks and costs thousands of dollars, which now requires only three days from design to installation and costs under $100.
