Today at RAPID + TCT 2021, Markforged, creator of the integrated metal and carbon fiber additive manufacturing platform, The Digital Forge, announced Eiger Fleet, a cloud-based software solution designed to accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing operations at scale. Eiger Fleet helps to transform additive manufacturing from a small scale operation to a large globally-connected, distributed manufacturing fleet by giving organizations a secure, cloud-connected and centralized source of control over their Markforged 3D printers, users and part production.
As the newest addition to the Markforged Eiger software portfolio, Eiger Fleet is designed to help manufacturers adopt disruptive additive manufacturing 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 organizations looking to scale their additive manufacturing 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, utilizes Eiger Fleet 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 (DDM) 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 Manufacturing at Vestas. “We depend on the Markforged platform with Eiger Fleet and Blacksmith to provide the centralized 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 their teams to order a part from their ERP system, creating a digitized Kanban inventory system, and have that part produced by a Markforged 3D 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.
Eiger Fleet is designed to enable customers to:
- 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 organization-wide presets
- Easily track, analyze and share key performance indicators of time and cost savings from additive manufacturing
“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,” said David Benhaim, CTO and co-founder of Markforged. “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.”
Eiger Fleet is available worldwide today as a paid software subscription on all Markforged printers. Attendees at RAPID + TCT 2021 can stop by booth #E7207 to see Eiger Fleet and the Digital Forge in action. For more information, visit www.markforged.com.