Scale Production
The Story
A design firm known for designing and marketing novel and successful consumer products was looking for a solution to the problem holding them back.
A new consumer product they designed with carbon fiber had an issue. The demand was far outstripping the production rate (4 hrs per part) of the carbon fiber parts. With 13 tools cycling for a full year and specialized labor, they couldn’t deliver on 1/10th of what retailers were interested in ordering. Scaling production was not feasible: specialized labor, tooling, and long cure times made scaling impossible without a significant growth in unit cost.
Read more on how Rapid TPC changed that equation, turning 4 hours into 45 seconds, and gaining economies of scale to meet demand.
4hrs
Time to produce 1 part
45 sec
13 = 10k
tools to parts/yr
1=100k
10%
potential demand
100%
Approach
Rapid TPC worked with the design firm to select the right material that Rapid could source and make parts from. After ordering prototype tooling, samples were produced and verified on our equipment.
The Results
Rapid TPC’s process and ability to scale production is enabling the design firm to open the gates on retail demand. With one tool, Rapid TPC is able to multiply the production capacity more than 10X what 13 tools and teams of specialized labor are able to do. This means production time is more than 100 times faster than making carbon by hand.