Athena 3D is a leading additive manufacturing service bureau located in Tempe, AZ, that prints parts on demand. As a technology-based service bureau, Athena runs multiple 3D printers at the same time to achieve higher production volumes to keep up with increasing customer orders.
Before automating, printers often completed jobs in the middle of the night, which means the machines sat idle until the next morning when an operator changed out the print bed to start the next job. Having as many as 16 printers to manually change over before starting another job is exponentially more time-consuming, impacting machine utilization and production deadlines.
With those challenges in mind, Athena reached out to Delta Technology, a FANUC Authorized System Integrator. Delta specializes in developing automation solutions for a wide range of industries. After evaluating the process together, Delta developed a turnkey system that features a FANUC CRX-10iA cobot to keep production running 24/7.