Celebrating a paperless factory with the commissioning of a brand new AM-Flow production line

Midwest Prototyping recently took their next step towards a fully automated Additive Manufacturing production plant with end-to-end product tracking and tracing by installing the AM-VISION and AM-SORT at their Blue Mounds production facility.

Ltr: Bill Isermann, Suzanne Brasure, Steve Grundahl, Nick Janssen (AM-Flow), Trent Appleby

The company is one of the first clients of AM-Flow using the AM-Flow’s vision technology. This moment marks the step to the brand new, next generation VISION and SORT. With these production modules, Midwest Prototyping is able to fully automated recognize, sort and route their daily volume of SLS, MJF and SLA prints, in only seconds per part.

“Midwest Prototyping is one of those visionary companies that saw the need for workflow automation at a very early stage. Both to  address efficiency, as well as to provide a better customer experience, opening up new demanding markets where process control is important for certification.”

Stefan Rink, CEO AM-Flow

AM-SORT and AM-VISION at the heart of the production facility of Midwest Prototyping

Midwest Prototyping maintains the highest standards of operational excellence and continuous improvement in every aspect of their organization. With the placement of the AM-VISION and AM-SORT, fully MES integrated, the production workflow has become fully paperless.

“The bottlenecks in the industry right now are largely in the post processing side, so everything after the printer. We understood this some time ago and have been working aggressively to solve it as we continue our mission to reinvent the service bureau. Our interest in AM-Flow goes back several years now, as we were one of the earliest adopters of their solutions.

We remain very impressed with the AM-Flow technology and are excited to upgrade our facility with their latest offering. While we continue to grow, we just can’t continue to add human labour to simply sort parts.”

Steve Grundahl, President Midwest Prototyping.

Midwest Prototyping is a leading, privately held Additive Manufacturing company with locations in Wisconsin and Colorado. With 6 different AM technologies, over 40 machines with more than 40 materials, ISO 9001 and AS 9100 certifications, they serve clients globally with premium Additive Manufacturing services.