“Manufacturing is critical to our national security, our health and our ability to explore new worlds and advance the human condition... VulcanForms exists to move manufacturing forward and be a small piece, hopefully a very important piece, of that future.”
VulcanForms is an MIT-born company that builds and operates advanced digital manufacturing infrastructure, founded in 2015. It’s named after Vulcan, the roman god of fire and metalworking. Why? Because the company has developed an innovative new way of manufacturing intricate metal parts on an industrial scale. They use metal additive manufacturing, a form of 3D printing to print engineered metal components that require precise designs and complex structures. This means they can have a production line that can at one time be making components for medical devices, then switch to making consumer electronics, and another week be making products for aviation, space exploration or the defence industry.
What’s more this production line is quieter, cleaner and greener than ever more! Manufacturing components this way instead of the traditional method of forging them cuts down on costs and removes the need for a supply chain.
In this episode, Co-Founder John Hart takes us around VulcanOne, VulcanForm’s Foundry in Massachusetts, to find out more. We also hear from Brian Thompson at PTC, who tells us about how the 3D CAD software Creo helps the team at VulcanForms collaborate on their designs to perfect this alternative manufacturing process.
VulcanForms is supported by PTC Partner PDS Vision, find out more about here
Find out more about Creo here
Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC.
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Third Angle is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Clarissa Maycock. Location recording by Curt Nickisch. And music by Rowan Bishop.