Agile Manufacturing — RepOne Strength
RepOne Strength makes training automation tools designed for the weight room. Athletes and coaches utilize their cutting edge technology to measure and track athletic performance with software that can adapt and personalize the user’s workout to optimize improvement. The hardware behind this that collects all this data is their new RepOne 3D motion unit.
Agile Manufacturing
Jordan, CEO of RepOne Strength, was looking to innovate not just with his products, but also with how they are manufactured. After learning about FFF 3D printing and its strengths in design adaptability and rapid iteration, Jordan decided that this could keep his prototyping and production lean and agile.
Rapid Prototyping and Iterative Production
Jordan reached out to us after he had worked through a number of prototypes using his own desktop 3D printers. He was ready to move to production, but wasn’t ready to make the investment in tooling for injection molding and preferred the freedom to iterate on design that 3D printing offers. Low volume production using 3D printing was the answer, but Jordan didn’t want to add managing a print farm to his already tall stack of responsibilities. Our collaboration began small by running a few test batches to dial in the parts for his needs, choosing the best materials, and optimizing the printing process. We settled on PETG as the primary material for most of the parts due to its ease of processing and relevantly low cost, and one of the mechanically critical parts being made from Fillamentum ASA for its impact resistance and durability. Jordan received several test batches in just a few short weeks; after validation we went into production.
RepOne Strength now receives roughly 1,000 production-ready 3D printed parts a month from the Hydra Research Print Service. All this while maintaining the flexibility to change the design at the drop of a hat based on user feedback with no expensive re-tooling fees. Jordan looks forward to future revisions without having to order new sets of molds for the traditionally used injection molding process.
“Additive manufacturing makes the hardware development process more like the software development process. Why frontload the cost and effort when you can instead focus on highest risk features and build/test/modify while you ship?”
Service From Real People
Anyone who has tried to bring a hardware product to market knows getting set up for production with all your suppliers and manufacturing partners can be a nightmare. From time zone differences and shipping delays to miscommunications can all bring a product launch to its knees before it even sees the light of day. Jordan knew this all too well and reached out to us after frustrations using online manufacturing platforms, which don’t allow the client to discuss design considerations and production needs with the operators running the equipment to produce the parts.
Some of the parts for the RepOne take advantage of 3D printings’ ability to vary part density in different regions of the part among other advanced additive manufacturing techniques. This means it is crucial for Jordan to have good communication with the operator setting up his parts. At Hydra Research customer experience and success is our highest priority, after a phone call or two we were able to dial in what was needed. We got Jordan set up in our project management portal which keeps communication, design files, invoices, production status tracking, and more all in one place instead of scattered through multiple different email threads. RepOne Strength has been using Hydra Research 3D printing services for about 6 months now and appreciates Hydra’s 3D print service for its:
“High quality prints, [ability] to work with us to get the parts sliced right, and [willingness] to work with us on feature problems for the next batch.”
Using Hydra Research’s 3D printing services RepOne Strength was able to focus on their core product. Learn more about our 3D services and contact us to discover how you can save time and money using 3D printing for production.