Scale Up Story: Growing Pains of Additive Post-Printing

Becoming a leader in an industry requires constant innovation to suit customer needs while staying ahead of the curve. Serving as a leading household name for more than a century necessitates all of that and more. Founded out of Minneapolis, MN in 1914, The Toro Company now serves 125 countries across the globe, and is one of the most recognized brands in maintenance solutions for the outdoor environment (e.g., turf maintenance, snow management, landscape, rental and specialty construction equipment).

Acknowledging the dynamic edge that additive manufacturing could give them, Toro implemented their first small Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printer back in 2012. Though they initially only employed the print technology for smaller prototype components, they soon invested in a total of six FDM printers to better serve their customers and develop a more diverse range of build sizes and parts for product groups. Before long, Toro realized how cost-effective it was to print larger parts piece-by-piece, then later fuse them together. This opportunity opened up an entirely new playing field for Toro’s additive potential. However, as print volume rapidly increased, it became clear that this growth would be stunted by FDM support removal bottlenecks and subsequent throughput limitations. This Toro facility supplies prototype components for over 300 designers, so even with these printers running 24/7, there always seemed to room for even greater throughput.

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