Roman Design Solutions - Scaling Jig Production and Reducing Operator Strain

The Challenge

Roman Design Solutions is a relatively small designer and manufacturer of complex Jigs and Fixtures. Primarily serving the British automotive industry, Roman’s expertise is highly regarded due to their reliability and creativity when it comes to complex assemblies designed to deliver accuracy and precision in the automotive assembly process.

They began 3D printing because their CNC machine shop was already at full capacity, and customers were pushing for lighter fixtures to reduce operator strain and the risk of repetitive strain injuries (RSI).

The Solution

A typical production run for a Roman Designs project can be 30 - 60 units at a time, but is often much smaller for more specialised fixture assemblies. Whilst they have a capable machine shop and skilled machinists on-site, they are normally at capacity with regard to their CNC machines. Squeezing more CNC machines into the facility and employing more machinists wasn’t preferable, and so it has proven far easier for Roman Designs to meet demand by gradually expanding their fleet of Markforged Printers.

By sharing with users the locked and encrypted Markforged print file (.mfp), the end user can replace printed components without invalidating their fixture warranty; automotive clients love this because printing parts is much less hassle than scheduling machining hours.