Additive Manufacturing Lab

When I started at Kihomac in 2018, we only had one FDM printer that was quite old at the time. In 2019 the company decided to buy a larger printer (Builder Extreme 1000 Pro), this gave us the capability to create full scale tooling for our general aviation department. When COVID hit in early 2020, the company decided to buy three medical grade SLA printers from Form Labs (Form 3B) to start printing nasal swabs. During this time I was tasked with developing a manufacturing plan for face shield that would be printed on our Builder FDM printer. After 900+ face shields and 20,000+ nasal swabs the demand for PPE went down and the medical lab was converted to a multi-purpose additive manufacturing lab. During the conversion, the company also decided to add an SLS printer from Form Labs (Fuse 1) to expand the labs capability.

My roles in the development of the additive manufacturing lab:

• Apart of printer selection team

• Designed lab layout

• Setup SharePoint site to inform employees about capabilities

• Setup automated job submission system that interfaces with a job tracking planner

• Printer training and work instructions

• Printer maintenance plans and required tools and consumables

• Material inventory management

Award in appreciation for this project

Mold pattern that was printed and finished for a composite part (pattern (left), mold (right)):

Size: 18" diameter by 22" tall