At TCT 2021, taking place 28 to 30 September at the NEC, Birmingham, Markforged, the creator of the integrated metal and carbon fibre additive manufacturing (AM) platform, the Digital Forge, will highlight Eiger Fleet, a cloud-based software solution designed to accelerate the adoption of AM operations at scale.

Eiger Fleet helps to transform AM from a small-scale operation to a large globally-connected, distributed manufacturing fleet by providing organisations with a secure, cloud-connected and centralised source of control over their Markforged 3-D printers, users and part production.

As the latest addition to the Markforged Eiger software portfolio, Eiger Fleet is designed to help manufacturers adopt groundbreaking technologies into their more traditional workflows. This software helps automate business processes through integrations with a company’s existing enterprise systems to expand access to the Digital Forge across their entire business.

For organisations looking to scale their AM capabilities, Eiger Fleet offers enterprise level features to manage users, devices and data with greater control and efficiency to print parts on demand at the point of need.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S, a global leader in sustainable energy solutions, uses Eiger Fleet to manage the production of parts and tools for its global fleet of wind turbines on Markforged 3-D printers.

Centralised control
Jeremy Haight, industrial automation and AM principal engineer at Vestas, said: “Over the past several years, Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) has evolved at Vestas to connect our factories around the world to support the production of parts and tools on demand.

“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 has enabled its teams to order a part from its ERP system, creating a digitised Kanban inventory system, and have that part produced by a Markforged 3-D printer nearest to them with the click of a button.

Vestas is also cutting lead time and costs with Eiger Fleet which drives agility and quality. One 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 and now requires only three days from design to installation and costs under $100.

David Benhaim, CTO and co-founder of Markforged, said: “Additive technology is transforming manufacturing around the world. Eiger Fleet fuels the expansion of AM 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 is possible in the future of manufacturing, through cloud-enabled distributed manufacturing.”

Eiger Fleet is available worldwide today as a paid software subscription on all Markforged printers.

Visitors at TCT 2021 can stop by Stand E7207 to see Eiger Fleet and the Digital Forge in action.