Since inception in 1995 we have maintained a business culture that is obsessed with the pursuit of excellence and utterly opposed to letting Harvest be just another “me too” supplier. The pioneering spirit of our engineering staff has led them to innovate custom manufacturing hardware and proprietary production systems, as well as critical processes of continuous improvement and best practices that continually push us to advance our capabilities. The resulting gains have enabled us to serve a much broader array of applications by significantly increasing the strength and functionality of the parts/assemblies we build. Additionally it has made direct digital manufacturing in higher quantities a reality for many of our customers.
With an eye to the future, Harvest’s engineering staff is persistently pushing to advance our capabilities with current additive manufacturing (AM) technology, and to develop new breakthrough technology. Through collaborative efforts with key academic and industry partners, as well as our own internal R&D resources, our engineers are developing innovative new processes, post-processes, and high performance material systems. The net effect of this is:
- Improved product quality
- Greater production efficiency
- More choices & better options
- Added repeatability & consistency
- Faster turnaround time
- Appreciable economies of scale
Our engineering department serves as the key driver of this objective, and they do so through two main initiatives:
Optimization: True craftsmanship is taking the best available tools and using them in the most effective ways to produce a superior product. This is the approach our engineers are taking as they simultaneously attack multiple fronts, including: manufacturing platforms & hardware, production systems, secondary post-processes, and new materials/variants. We commonly perform offline trials and D.O.E.’s (designs of experiment) in a scientific, systematic manner to maximize the performance of the machines and optimize the properties of the materials. The ultimate objective of our engineers is to develop the optimal technical “recipes” to consistently, rapidly, and cost-effectively produce parts, assemblies and products that perform at peak levels of functionality.
Innovation: With the greater good of the AM industry always being a top priority at Harvest, our engineering staff will continue to participate in the development of new technology. We are actively engaged in several joint and individual initiatives that promise to yield tangible gains in the not-so-distant future. We cannot go into detail about these developments at this time, but suffice it to say that everything our engineers are working on is for the purpose of providing our customers superior options and solutions. We look forward to sharing news of them with you when the results are in, and are able to make these new capabilities available. Stay tuned!
