New England Arbors
Challenge/Opportunity:
New England Arbors is a Sarnia, Ontario, based manufacturer of commercial and industrial arbours, gazebos and other outdoor products. As a method of improved marketing, they have determined to introduce themselves to potential distributors by sending them miniature versions of some of their products. They approached BTAC to convert their gazebo and arbour products into miniature versions that could be robustly printed using additive printing and samples were sent to 52 different distributors.
Solution/Collaboration:
Additive printing of the miniature arbours allowed for a level of detail that is normally not available in small prototypes and they were well received. They were so successful that New England Arbors later commissioned larger gazebos approximately 300 mm tall and 400 mm square that were used at trade shows in Las Vegas and in their marketing efforts in the USA. The prototypes were very popular and were later redesigned to be assembled from modular components to reduce shipping costs for use at tradeshows.
Area: Advanced Manufacturing
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