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Success Story

Shagbuilt Realizes Huge Success Through Inhouse Design and Manufacturing

Shagbuilt Realizes Huge Success Through Inhouse Design and Manufacturing

Customer challenge

Shagbuilt is a company that produces high quality hand-built Tattoo Machines that has been in business for 22 years. Having always outsourced all manufacturing, two years ago they decided to bring manufacturing in house. Doing so required that they invest in manufacturing equipment. With zero design or manufacturing experience, the software needed to be easy to use yet robust enough to quickly produce these components in order to be successful.

Project goals

The following priority project goals were identified in partnership with Shagbuilt: 

1) Source new software to design, render and manufacture their parts in a single platform. 

2) The software must be easy to Learn, Use, and Implement to the expanding team. 

3) The solution could not be cost prohibitive, traditional solutions could easily exceed $20,000. 

4) Training and related technical knowledge had to be accessible. 

5) The software must run natively on Mac operating systems.

Solution

Shagbuilt decided to partner with Autodesk Solution Provider DSI to implement Autodesk Fusion 360 with the Manufacturing Extension. We quickly delivered some training furthering the implementation for advanced 5-axis manufacturing with Fusion 360. We continue to work with Shagbuilt to help further grow their business.

Business outcome

Through the investments of Autodesk Fusion 360 along with resources offered from DSi, Shagbuilt has been able to increase profitability, control inventory and supply, and decrease time to market for new products. They are so efficient that they only require three months of manufacturing to produce a year's worth of inventory. This provides enough time to operate a machine shop as a secondary value stream. Additionally, the greatly improved manufacturing efficiency allows for incremental design and prototyping time to further develop new and innovative products.

Conclusion

Shagbuilt has transitioned from sourcing all manufacturing and components to designing amazingly unique Tattoo Machines and producing their parts in house. Through continued investment leveraging Autodesk technology has allowed for exponential growth. The company has ignited a passion for innovative products, efficient manufacturing processes, and an expanded value stream of producing parts unrelated to the Tattoo Machine industry. “There just isn’t any other way we could have grown so quickly.” - Mike Kruse, Shagbuilt Machine Co.

Project summary

    Duration & delivery

  • 90
  • 2021-12-07

    Autodesk solutions

  • Fusion 360
  • Fusion 360 - Machining Extension
  • Fusion 360 for Manufacturing

    Services provided

  • Assessment of Needs
  • Implementation
  • Workflow Optimization
  • CAM Programming
  • Post Processor
  • System Integration
  • Training

    Customer industry

  • Subtractive Manufacturing
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