REVOLUTIONIZING READINESS
A WHITE PAPER OUTLINING THE VALUE OF MOBILE, HYBRID MANUFACTURING IN REMOTE ENVIRONMENTS
Access the White Paper Below
An Innovative Solution for Parts Manufacturing in Austere Environments
Snowbird Technologies is committed to filling critical product gap needs for military and industrial markets.
Our Snowbird Additive Mobile Manufacturing platform (SAMM Tech) meets warfighters and operators where they are to provide mission-supporting equipment.
ABSTRACT
For more than 30 years, Snowbird Technologies has been a supplier of Environmental Control Units (ECUs) to the United States military. As a small business, Snowbird Technologies reliably serves the air conditioning and heating needs of defense forces with a broad range of ECU products - from small air condition units to heat pumps.
Today, Snowbird Technologies offers a diversified portfolio including a patented, containerized mobile manufacturing center. Identifying a need in current markets, this new product meets warfighters and operators where they are, supplying them with a mission-supporting, on-demand parts supply chain.
PROBLEM
STATEMENT
Warfighters and remote industrial operators face a multitude of challenges and obstacles in the field.
Snowbird Technologies is addressing mission-readiness and sustainment with the SAMM Tech product offering.
The fulfillment of repair or replacement parts for equipment remains a critical need in remote locations. As the global supply chain, shipping, and raw materials markets continue to fumble, fundamental entities such as defense forces are left vulnerable to operational downtime and security breaches when they aren’t able to efficiently repair or replace parts of important machinery and units. Critical spare parts distribution is an imperative concern for defense forces and industrial operations around the globe. Long delays, wrong or missing parts, and inconsistency of material availability leave critical systems down or in need of repair, potentially weakening perimeters and leaving troops and operators in dangerous situations.
MOBILE, LARGE FORMAT, METAL 3D PRINTING & MANUFACTURING CENTER
Shown: SAMM-MM010S
Metal production + milling head built into a 10-ft. standard height shipping container
The SOLUTION
Snowbird Technologies addresses this concern and product gap with the Snowbird Additive Mobile Manufacturing platform.
The Snowbird Additive Mobile Manufacturing platform (SAMM Tech) is a patented hybrid manufacturing system that revolutionizes parts procurement and logistics in the field. SAMM Tech provides an additive manufacturing system (3D printing) with subtractive manufacturing capabilities (milling and routing heads) to produce large format, metal or composite parts. The patented gantry platform is constructed inside standard shipping containers, ensuring that the platform can be shipped to any location in the world. This concept is patented by US Patent No. 10,434,712 B1. As of 2022, Snowbird is the sole owner of this patent.
The ability to have a mobile hybrid manufacturing unit offers the capability to make any required part at any time, in any location. If there is a part that needs to be replaced immediately, a new one can be printed and machined on location or nearby, avoiding the challenges of navigating
supply chain and logistics shortcomings.
With additional equipment from manufacturers such as Creaform, SAMM Tech can be automated with 3D scanner systems. This gives the unit the ability to scan and create a database of old parts that the DOD or business needs to catalog. Once scanned, operators can modify the part to modernize or optimize old, obsolete designs. These original or modified scanned parts can then be made and finished in the SAMM Tech platform. The Creaform system can detect and repair defects in any steel part as well. For example, if a cog in an aging gun turret loses a tooth, the cog can be placed in the machine, scanned, locate the missing tooth, add material, and machine the new tooth back into the same shape as the other teeth. The whole process can be done in a few hours as opposed to days or months if a new one must be ordered, made, and shipped to location.
SAMM Tech differentiates itself from other additive manufacturing systems in several ways.
One, it is designed for large format parts. The standard model features a 10-ft. x 5-ft. print bed, allowing for parts as large as 250 cubic feet to be manufactured onsite. SAMM Tech can produce in both metal and composite materials, while many systems focus on composites only. Lastly, the SAMM Tech system uses standard weld wire for metal production and inert gas to run the system, mitigating an excess of consumable parts.
SAMM Tech challenges the way that parts make it to the operators in the field, minimizing downtime and optimizing fleet and
troop readiness.
contact us To Learn more or schedule
a product demo
Jeremy Heerdink
Vice President, Business Development
(615) 630-0812
jheerdink@snowbirdtech.com
CONCLUSION
Snowbird Technologies is actively identifying product gaps that directly impact warfighters and operators in the field.
As the only patented, mobile, containerized, large format hybrid manufacturing system on the market, SAMM Tech revolutionizes the way that defense forces and industrial operators are sustained and supported. An on-demand supply chain ensures that operations can carry on without significant delays or security breaches, revolutionizing the definition of readiness in the field.
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