WEBVTT
00:00:19.359 -->
00:00:24.239Hello, and welcome to FoDES, the future of design and engineering software podcast.
00:00:24.239 -->
00:00:26.000My name is Roopinder Tara.
00:00:26.000 -->
00:00:32.880On the show, we will have guests that will discuss tools and technology that engineers will find interesting and useful.
00:00:32.880 -->
00:00:34.000Hi, Eduardo.
00:00:34.000 -->
00:00:34.640Good to meet you.
00:00:34.640 -->
00:00:37.359I want to welcome Eduardo Torrealba to the show.
00:00:37.359 -->
00:00:38.240Yes for having me.
00:00:38.240 -->
00:00:46.960Eduardo is the CEO and founder of Lumafield. Lumafield is a scanning company selling hardware and software.
00:00:46.960 -->
00:00:50.159Solutions are used for industrial CT scanning.
00:00:50.159 -->
00:00:55.520Curious about CT-scanning because that is mostly used as far as I know.
00:00:55.520 -->
00:00:59.359I've been a patient of CT scans and MRIs.
00:00:59.359 -->
00:01:00.960They're always used in the medical field.
00:01:00.960 -->
00:01:03.200So how does it relate to manufacturing?
00:01:03.439 -->
00:01:06.959Industrial CT scanning is as old as medical CT scanning.
00:01:06.959 -->
00:01:09.200The technology was invented at the same time.
00:01:09.200 -->
00:01:17.599And the value proposition for human beings or cell phones or drones or batteries, it's all the same, right?
00:01:17.599 -->
00:01:21.599It's the desire to see inside of something without having to cut it open.
00:01:21.599 -->
00:01:27.680And with human beings, the price of cutting a person open is very high, both in direct costs and in risk.
00:01:27.680 -->
00:01:33.359And in industrial CT scanning, product development, destructive testing could also be very expensive.
00:01:33.359 -->
00:01:47.120We bring not just the 2D X-ray of an object, like if you get your arm X-rayed, if you have a sprain or your word that you have a broken bone, we get the full CT the 360, 3D data of the entire inside of an object.
00:01:47.120 -->
00:01:58.480It's invaluable for complex internal geometries, inspecting complex assemblies, multiple parts that are nested together, looking at things like intermittent electrical contacts.
00:01:58.480 -->
00:02:06.079But at the end of the day, the thing we give our customers more than a scan or a couture is confidence to go faster.
00:02:06.079 -->
00:02:16.960If you're sure that everything you're making is good, you're able to operate closer to the limit of your materials, your processes, your suppliers, you can get more efficiency out of every process that you run.
00:02:16.960 -->
00:02:24.879That's a huge concern for every one of our customers today, whether they're a Fortune 10 mega corp or a small startup that's just getting started in production.
00:02:25.120 -->
00:02:25.840How should I say this?
00:02:25.840 -->
00:02:29.199Why should I believe you when you say you have a really good solution?
00:02:29.199 -->
00:02:30.960What do you know about CT scanning?
00:02:30.960 -->
00:02:31.759What's your background?
00:02:31.759 -->
00:02:32.560I see here.
00:02:32.560 -->
00:02:38.240You're at Form Labs and you were so you were a director of engineering.
00:02:38.240 -->
00:02:39.680Then you went on Yeah.
00:02:39.680 -->
00:02:41.520Then you went on to freelance.
00:02:41.520 -->
00:02:43.680Consulted with a lot of people, right?
00:02:43.680 -->
00:02:46.080A lot of companies and advised them.
00:02:46.080 -->
00:02:48.240And then you decided to go off on your own.
00:02:48.240 -->
00:02:48.879You could do this.
00:02:48.879 -->
00:02:51.360Why tell other people how to do it when you could do it yourself?
00:02:51.680 -->
00:02:52.960Why should you believe me?
00:02:52.960 -->
00:02:55.120And my answer to that is like, you shouldn't.
00:02:55.120 -->
00:02:57.599There's no reason that you should have to just trust me.
00:02:57.599 -->
00:03:01.919We actually engage with all of our customers through what we call the try-by motion.
00:03:01.919 -->
00:03:06.879We're the only CT scanning company in the world that I'm aware of that'll give you a trial of our unit.
00:03:06.879 -->
00:03:13.919We'll deploy a system to your facility for 60 days, scan anything you want, look at the data, examine it, give it a torture test.
00:03:13.919 -->
00:03:21.199We'll let you experience this technology before you have to pay us money every year to access our software, hardware, or services.
00:03:21.199 -->
00:03:22.000Do that?
00:03:22.000 -->
00:03:22.719You'll approve it.
00:03:22.719 -->
00:03:24.080But we do that in the United States.
00:03:24.080 -->
00:03:26.080We don't do trials in other countries right now.
00:03:26.080 -->
00:03:28.560If you're a company in the United States, we'll put a system in your facility.
00:03:28.560 -->
00:03:29.599We don't do it for free.
00:03:29.599 -->
00:03:31.199You have to pay a little bit to try it.
00:03:31.199 -->
00:03:34.479We believe there's a lot more value in actually experiencing.
00:03:34.479 -->
00:03:35.520You don't know if it'll work.
00:03:35.520 -->
00:03:36.159Let's try it out.
00:03:36.159 -->
00:03:38.240And if it doesn't work, we're totally fine with that.
00:03:38.240 -->
00:03:41.280I don't want my customers to have my products if it's not going to work for them.
00:03:41.280 -->
00:03:42.719There's no reason you should trust us.
00:03:42.719 -->
00:03:46.080You should go and use it yourself before you commit to anything at Lumaffield.
00:03:46.240 -->
00:03:48.879Or do I have to give you my first board to hold as a hostage?
00:03:49.199 -->
00:03:54.080No, I'd say the cost of the trial depends on the size of the organization and the length of time and shipping.
00:03:54.080 -->
00:03:59.120It's something like the equivalent of paying for a few scans from a third-party lab.
00:03:59.120 -->
00:04:01.840But it's very reasonable in terms of the cost to do a trial.
00:04:01.840 -->
00:04:03.520You're not putting a million dollars down.
00:04:03.520 -->
00:04:04.879Our scanners don't cost that much.
00:04:04.879 -->
00:04:07.439They're much more affordable than anything else in the space.
00:04:07.439 -->
00:04:14.000That's part of the reason we have such an open and transparent process that we put our technology in front of our potential customers.
00:04:14.000 -->
00:04:18.000Now we make sure in here like a company and we're not putting this in somebody's garage.
00:04:18.000 -->
00:04:19.519But it is X-ray equipment.
00:04:19.519 -->
00:04:20.560We've got to be careful with it.
00:04:20.560 -->
00:04:23.040But yeah, we've done it for tons of organizations.
00:04:23.040 -->
00:04:28.160We deployed these things in conference rooms and factory floors and production facilities in Asia.
00:04:28.319 -->
00:04:29.680They're all over the world at this point.
00:04:29.680 -->
00:04:33.199So it is X-rays, and I'm reminded of the medical use of it.
00:04:33.199 -->
00:04:40.560In medicine, I'm going to get zapped with X-rays, but they're going to be of lower energy than an industrial machine, correct?
00:04:40.560 -->
00:04:43.759I would totally get fried if I went under one of your machines.
00:04:44.079 -->
00:04:45.199Wouldn't get fried.
00:04:45.199 -->
00:04:52.240There's a huge number of factors to skip over all the biological and radiation safety and physics, which we take very seriously at low seals.
00:04:52.240 -->
00:04:54.560Our systems are in closed cabinets.
00:04:54.560 -->
00:04:55.920It's a sealed lead box.
00:04:55.920 -->
00:04:59.360So you can't turn the X-ray system on unless the door is closed.
00:04:59.360 -->
00:05:05.920There's a special interlock where if you were to run into it with a forklift and jam the door open, it would cut the electricity of the X-ray source.
00:05:05.920 -->
00:05:07.120So it's extremely safe.
00:05:07.120 -->
00:05:08.560There's no radiation leakage.
00:05:08.560 -->
00:05:11.920We hold ourselves to a higher standard for shielding than the federal standard.
00:05:11.920 -->
00:05:17.519There's no detectable x-ray emissions, even a tiny amount of distance away from the system.
00:05:17.519 -->
00:05:21.439You could sit next to it all day long and never have any kind of additional exposure.
00:05:21.439 -->
00:05:23.519Certainly less than you would get on a short flight.
00:05:23.519 -->
00:05:29.279Our systems don't pose any of those risks because they're sealed systems to keep all the x-rays inside the box pointed at the point.
00:05:29.279 -->
00:05:51.120Frankly, 3D printing is not a production technology.
00:05:51.120 -->
00:05:56.319Our customers do things like medical devices, batteries, consumer package goods.
00:05:56.319 -->
00:05:58.879Like I talked about the shampoo bottle situation here.
00:05:58.879 -->
00:06:05.360We have a lot of customers that work in aerospace and defense, and they're making things like defensive flares or energetic systems.
00:06:05.360 -->
00:06:07.680These are items that are made in huge quantities.
00:06:07.680 -->
00:06:12.240And being able to inspect them and make sure that they're operating properly, that's the predominant use case.
00:06:12.240 -->
00:06:14.720Ultimately, is someone who works in 3D printing for a long time.
00:06:14.720 -->
00:06:21.439It's really much more of a prototyping and short-run manufacturing technology than it is a mass manufacturing technology.
00:06:21.439 -->
00:06:26.879Most of our customers are inspecting injection-molded parts, assemblies, electronics, things that are made in huge quantities.
00:06:27.120 -->
00:06:29.279Batteries, I'm reminded of battery technology.
00:06:29.279 -->
00:06:31.199So I'm a mechanical engineer, and you are too.
00:06:31.199 -->
00:06:33.120Congratulations on learning all that physics.
00:06:33.120 -->
00:06:34.399You should have a secret handshake.
00:06:34.399 -->
00:06:34.800We'll do it.
00:06:34.800 -->
00:06:36.000Yeah, there we go.
00:06:36.000 -->
00:06:37.920So you had to learn a lot of physics, right?
00:06:37.920 -->
00:06:41.839Well beyond what an ME normally has to learn to get into this business.
00:06:41.839 -->
00:06:49.199You can study electronics, but the battery technology, batteries are suffer from this thing called dendrification.
00:06:49.199 -->
00:06:50.160Is that the right term?
00:06:50.160 -->
00:06:52.079And get the dendrites.
00:06:52.079 -->
00:06:57.759The dendrites tend to grow and as the charges, discharges, and they're microscopic, I understand.
00:06:57.759 -->
00:06:59.920Now, is that something that's a use case?
00:06:59.920 -->
00:07:01.040Something like what you have?
00:07:01.199 -->
00:07:01.360Yeah.
00:07:01.360 -->
00:07:03.120That is a failure mode for batteries.
00:07:03.120 -->
00:07:06.800That is not usually the primary place where our customers are using us.
00:07:06.800 -->
00:07:10.319Our customers use us to inspect freshly manufactured cells.
00:07:10.319 -->
00:07:14.639They usually haven't had enough charge-discharge cycles on them to find that.
00:07:14.639 -->
00:07:18.639There are use cases where our customers are doing research and development versus production.
00:07:18.639 -->
00:07:19.839A lot that goes into batteries.
00:07:19.839 -->
00:07:25.199I've come to really appreciate a lot of the failure modes in the development, the production, and use of batteries.
00:07:25.199 -->
00:07:30.800We have a deep dive into 18650 lithium-ion battery cells called the battery report.
00:07:30.800 -->
00:07:39.279We've got over a thousand scans of batteries that we ran to do statistical analysis of various manufacturers and different products that you can buy online for these applications.
00:07:39.279 -->
00:07:52.399What we found in that report is that a significant percentage, almost 10% of the third-party, refurbished, non-name brand cells that we inspected had critical failures that could actually lead to a short or even a fire with those batteries.
00:07:52.399 -->
00:07:58.319The report that we did on batteries, Samsung, Panasonic, they build really amazing pieces of technology.
00:07:58.319 -->
00:08:03.680And part of that is the reliance on really high quality information about everything that they're manufacturing.
00:08:03.680 -->
00:08:10.959Whether that's T-scanning or other processes, that level of knowledge is difficult to bring to a small or medium-sized manufacturer.
00:08:10.959 -->
00:08:26.399We've tried to make T-scanning affordable enough that you can operate your 300-person defense contractor in Nebraska the same way that Apple or Samsung or Philips or Boeing operates their quality control program by making this technology more accessible.
00:08:26.720 -->
00:08:30.240Are your tools, your systems used for nefarious purpose?
00:08:30.240 -->
00:08:33.600I'm talking about industrial espionage in the case of batteries.
00:08:33.600 -->
00:08:35.840How are my competitors' batteries made?
00:08:35.840 -->
00:08:41.039Rather than take them apart, I just reveal every all the secrets of my competitors.
00:08:41.039 -->
00:08:42.799Sure, there's a lot to that question.
00:08:43.039 -->
00:08:46.320We could talk about what is industrial espionage, what is reverse engineering.
00:08:46.320 -->
00:08:51.120I could tell you that the vast majority of our customers, that's not the reason they buy our technology.
00:08:51.120 -->
00:08:53.279They're buying it to look at the things that they make.
00:08:53.279 -->
00:08:59.120A lot of our customers use a tool that compares the as manufactured object with the CAD model that they make.
00:08:59.120 -->
00:09:00.559They're the ones that design the product.
00:09:00.559 -->
00:09:02.799They're really looking at the things they make themselves.
00:09:02.799 -->
00:09:04.480You can take apart anything you buy.
00:09:04.480 -->
00:09:06.559It might avoid the warranty, but you can take it apart.
00:09:06.559 -->
00:09:08.480You can T-scan anything that you buy.
00:09:08.480 -->
00:09:13.440If you decide to use that information to violate another company's patents, that would be illegal.
00:09:13.440 -->
00:09:16.080There's nothing illegal about buying something and taking it apart.
00:09:16.080 -->
00:09:18.799If I work at Samsung, I can buy an iPhone and take it apart.
00:09:18.799 -->
00:09:20.320That's nothing illegal about that.
00:09:20.320 -->
00:09:25.360The problem is when you're violating their intellectual property or their patents in new products that you're making.
00:09:25.360 -->
00:09:26.720But you can always look inside of things.
00:09:26.720 -->
00:09:28.000I mean, teardowns, right?
00:09:28.000 -->
00:09:28.559iFixit.
00:09:28.559 -->
00:09:31.039There's a partner of ours now, actually, they do a lot of scanning on this.
00:09:31.039 -->
00:09:37.200They take apart every piece of electronics that's released and talk about the way that it's manufactured and assembled and how repairable it is.
00:09:37.200 -->
00:09:40.480I would personally classify that as very different from industrial espionage.
00:09:40.480 -->
00:09:45.360I would think of industrial espionage as gaining access to trade secrets that you're not supposed to have access to.
00:09:45.360 -->
00:09:48.000And our technology is never used for those kinds of purposes.
00:09:48.320 -->
00:09:49.919It might be industrial espionage.
00:09:49.919 -->
00:09:56.559If you broke into Apple's headquarters to look at their phones, but if you bought that $130 cable scan it, that's totally fine.
00:09:56.559 -->
00:09:58.159Just answer that question.
00:09:58.159 -->
00:09:59.919Why is it worth $130?
00:09:59.919 -->
00:10:00.720That's right.
00:10:00.799 -->
00:10:05.279I've come to appreciate the complexity of the USB C cables quite a bit more since starting to stamp it.
00:10:05.679 -->
00:10:08.559Engineers, it's really important to see what's inside the object.
00:10:08.559 -->
00:10:10.559And it's frustrating when you can't do that.
00:10:10.559 -->
00:10:14.240When you have to shatter something, use some strange means that take it apart.
00:10:14.240 -->
00:10:16.720Why not CT scan it to see how it goes?
00:10:16.720 -->
00:10:22.480If I want to detect voids or very small objects, by the way, you have to tell me how small this can go.
00:10:22.480 -->
00:10:25.039How is that differentiated by color?
00:10:25.039 -->
00:10:29.279For example, if I want to see a void in a casting, will it show up red?
00:10:29.519 -->
00:10:35.120The visualization of the data in our software, you could actually apply a number of different color schemes to that.
00:10:35.120 -->
00:10:38.799So I could show a void as red or blue or green or whatever it might be.
00:10:38.799 -->
00:10:51.120What's really happening is, as I said before, the x-rays are passing through the object where we build our own X-ray detectors from scratch that we invented here at Lumafield to be more affordable, longer lasting, more robust, better fit for the use cases our customers have.
00:10:51.120 -->
00:10:56.000Through some really incredible algorithms, we reconstruct that into a 3D representation.
00:10:56.000 -->
00:10:58.879It shows up with different levels of density.
00:10:58.879 -->
00:11:02.000If you scan a plastic product, it'll be one color.
00:11:02.000 -->
00:11:07.679If you had plastic and the metal absorbs the x-rays differently than the plastic, and so you get some contrast between those two things.
00:11:07.679 -->
00:11:11.840Those can show up as different colors or different shades or whatever visualization you want to apply.
00:11:11.840 -->
00:11:16.559And the voids would show up as whatever color you have empty space set to in your visualization.
00:11:18.399 -->
00:11:24.159It's hard to discern what is broken or damaged in an X-ray because of that lack of color differentiation.
00:11:24.159 -->
00:11:25.519Yeah, the contrast, right?
00:11:25.519 -->
00:11:26.000Yeah, exactly.
00:11:26.240 -->
00:11:28.240So we have we have pretty good dynamic range.
00:11:28.240 -->
00:11:29.600We're able to visualize these things.
00:11:29.600 -->
00:11:36.480Just went resolution earlier and say we can usually resolve things in our high-resolution system down to about which is very, very small.
00:11:36.480 -->
00:11:42.799It's not small enough to inspect, like, you know, the transistors on a NVIDIA chip or something crazy like that.
00:11:42.799 -->
00:11:46.159But you can see one-tenth of the diameter of a human hair.
00:11:46.159 -->
00:11:49.360So you can see a lot inside of that to that level of resolution.
00:11:49.360 -->
00:11:49.919How is it?
00:11:49.919 -->
00:11:54.320There's a number of factors that influence resolvable feature size.
00:11:54.320 -->
00:11:58.720The resolution of a CT scan is a function of the X-ray source.
00:11:58.720 -->
00:12:06.320So think about how like finely, this is an imperfect analogy, but like how tight is the tip of your pen, right?
00:12:06.320 -->
00:12:12.159If you have a very small ink pen versus a Sharpie versus the big paint marker, you get a different level of resolution when you're drawing.
00:12:12.159 -->
00:12:15.200So think of that as sort of the light source that we have that we're shining.
00:12:15.200 -->
00:12:18.559And then there's the resolution of the detector technology.
00:12:18.559 -->
00:12:25.440And you could think of that as like you have this pen and you're coloring over different squares and they turn on or off depending on whether they're getting hit with the ink.
00:12:25.440 -->
00:12:32.480The resolution of the system, the resolution of the detector, and then another one that's the, you know, so you've ever done shadow puppets with your hands.
00:12:32.480 -->
00:12:37.360If you take a flashlight and you put your hand on the wall, the shadow is the same size as your hand.
00:12:37.360 -->
00:12:45.120But if you walk away from the wall and you hold your hand close to the light, you get this thing called geometric magnification where you're able to get like a very large shadow.
00:12:45.120 -->
00:12:51.919And so that distance and the cone angle, there's a lot that goes into the model of what determines the resolution of one of these systems.
00:12:51.919 -->
00:12:55.600But we figure all that out and just give you the number and you don't have to worry about all those things.
00:12:55.600 -->
00:12:58.159We just tell you the resolution whenever you're setting up a scan.
00:12:58.159 -->
00:13:00.320And we've actually automated many of those things.
00:13:00.320 -->
00:13:03.759If you buy a traditional C scanner, you're buying a scientific instrument.
00:13:03.759 -->
00:13:08.080And when you're a scientist, you want access to everything, like all the raw values.
00:13:08.080 -->
00:13:13.360You want to be the one that creates the algorithm or the process that you use to achieve your result.
00:13:13.360 -->
00:13:18.559It's like taking a camera and setting it to fully manual and individually tweaking every single setting.
00:13:18.559 -->
00:13:21.360Get the raw image to get exactly what you want, right?
00:13:21.360 -->
00:13:24.720I mostly just want to take my phone out and hit the button and get a picture, right?
00:13:24.720 -->
00:13:25.840That's what our engineers want.
00:13:25.840 -->
00:13:26.879That's what our customers want.
00:13:26.879 -->
00:13:30.879They want an auto feature for CT scanning, and that's what we built for them in our software.
00:13:30.879 -->
00:13:36.559You don't have to know about everything I just described to understand if you're getting a good scan or a bad scan with the messy else.
00:13:36.799 -->
00:13:37.200That's very good.
00:13:37.200 -->
00:13:38.000Definitely helps me.
00:13:38.000 -->
00:13:42.399I thought of another use case that would be really good for e scanning.
00:13:42.399 -->
00:13:42.879I don't know.
00:13:42.879 -->
00:13:44.320I saw this watchmaker.
00:13:44.320 -->
00:13:50.799It was a 60 Minutes episore a watchmaker making extremely intricate watch movements in Swiss watches.
00:13:50.799 -->
00:13:52.320They get down to very small.
00:13:52.320 -->
00:13:52.480Okay.
00:13:52.480 -->
00:13:57.360I thought I really want to know how that works, but I don't want to take it apart because it'll never come back together.
00:13:57.360 -->
00:13:59.120Are watchmakers a customer?
00:13:59.120 -->
00:13:59.600And that's the same.
00:14:00.639 -->
00:14:02.879We have not really gotten into that market.
00:14:02.879 -->
00:14:07.440There are levels to being a watch person versus not a watch person, and at the very beginning of that.
00:14:07.440 -->
00:14:09.840But yeah, I do love the mechanical design pieces.
00:14:09.840 -->
00:14:11.039I'm a mechanical engineer.
00:14:11.039 -->
00:14:13.840It's not a surprising sort of overlap in interests.
00:14:13.840 -->
00:14:15.919I've done some scans of watch movements.
00:14:15.919 -->
00:14:18.320I'll send you one that you can take a look at in Voyager.
00:14:18.320 -->
00:14:30.639When we have scanned high-end mechanical wristwatches, it's kind of two limiting factors that make that a difficult application for CT scanning in general, whether it's a million-dollar system or one of our systems.
00:14:30.639 -->
00:14:34.399One is there's a lot of precious metals and high-end wristwatches.
00:14:34.399 -->
00:14:39.840And things like gold, silver, and platinum, they have a very high atomic number and they absorb a lot of x-rays.
00:14:39.840 -->
00:14:46.240You need a very powerful X-ray source to punch through a gold Patek Philippe watch, for instance.
00:14:46.240 -->
00:14:55.120The other thing that's interesting is that a lot of the glass on the crystal for a lot of modern high-end watches, there's a polymer anti-reflective coating.
00:14:55.120 -->
00:14:58.159If you take a cheap piece of plastic and you put it on the sun, it'll turn yellow.
00:14:58.159 -->
00:14:59.039It'll color.
00:14:59.039 -->
00:15:04.000The same thing can happen with anti-reflective coating on the crystal on a watch.
00:15:04.000 -->
00:15:06.000And that doesn't happen under normal conditions.
00:15:06.000 -->
00:15:08.240You could leave it outside for years and it wouldn't happen.
00:15:08.240 -->
00:15:14.639But if you have a super powerful X-ray that's punching through platinum and hitting your anti-reflective coating, it can yellow that coating.
00:15:14.639 -->
00:15:23.120So you end up with this combination of moderately fragile polymers that are very thin with super absorbent gold, silver, and platinum.
00:15:23.120 -->
00:15:24.720Nobody wants a yellowed watch face.
00:15:24.720 -->
00:15:27.200Exactly.
00:15:27.200 -->
00:15:27.840So you're right.
00:15:27.840 -->
00:15:31.679So and then in the lower cost systems, there could be some applications for that.
00:15:31.679 -->
00:15:39.840I would wager that the high-end Swiss watch world is probably a place where they are at the absolute cutting limit of what quality looks like.
00:15:39.840 -->
00:15:41.039And that's very manual.
00:15:41.039 -->
00:15:42.879It's a lot of by hand operations.
00:15:42.879 -->
00:15:43.200Right.
00:15:43.200 -->
00:15:48.000If you're watching and you work at Omega or Rolex, I'd love to get you a system and come visit your facility.
00:15:48.240 -->
00:15:49.840They have to take care of that problem somehow.
00:15:50.240 -->
00:15:52.879They could examine the movement without the crystal or a case.
00:15:52.879 -->
00:15:59.840The area that we make the biggest difference in Lumafield is putting inspection technology that our customers have never had in their hands.
00:15:59.840 -->
00:16:01.120We are not the tool.
00:16:01.120 -->
00:16:02.480We don't make Formula One cars.
00:16:02.480 -->
00:16:14.240If you're a Formula One car driver, you're shopping at a very different place than a person who needs to buy a fleet of F-150 pickup trucks for their entire field services organization for their utility company.
00:16:14.240 -->
00:16:15.840We make the F-150 pickup truck.
00:16:15.840 -->
00:16:18.159We don't make the Ferrari Formula One car.
00:16:18.159 -->
00:16:23.200And so we sell to these people who want to go from zero to 100.
00:16:23.200 -->
00:16:27.200They don't need to go from 100 to 110 or from 1,000 to 1,000.
00:16:27.200 -->
00:16:32.559We typically sell to a different type of organization than maybe the highest end luxury manufacturers.
00:16:32.559 -->
00:16:34.399It's really a different design philosophy.
00:16:34.399 -->
00:16:37.919We're more about accessibility than we are about highest end performance.
00:16:38.159 -->
00:16:39.679I think we've covered everything.
00:16:39.679 -->
00:16:42.240I do want to give you a chance to talk about what you do.
00:16:42.240 -->
00:16:46.000I read the press announcement about the GDT Act.
00:16:46.000 -->
00:16:50.080Are you able to now put GDT on parts that you have scanned?
00:16:50.080 -->
00:16:54.320I thought, wow, this makes inspection of parts really much more useful.
00:16:54.639 -->
00:16:57.519We talked to our customers and we asked them about how they use our tools.
00:16:57.519 -->
00:17:00.399What other tools do they have in their quality lab and their factory?
00:17:00.399 -->
00:17:01.440How do they use those tools?
00:17:01.440 -->
00:17:02.720Is there something they wish we could do?
00:17:02.720 -->
00:17:06.079Coordinate measuring machines are pretty incredible.
00:17:06.079 -->
00:17:07.599They've been around for a very long time.
00:17:07.599 -->
00:17:09.599They're a little bit older than industrial sea scanning.
00:17:09.599 -->
00:17:11.759They haven't changed a whole lot in that time period.
00:17:11.759 -->
00:17:13.519I talked about injection-molded plastic.
00:17:13.519 -->
00:17:19.920A lot of high precision injection molded plastic for things like continuous glucose monitors, drug delivery systems, lure locks.
00:17:19.920 -->
00:17:22.240There's a lot of medical devices that are plastic.
00:17:22.240 -->
00:17:27.039If there's a problem with the geometry, you don't get function and then you can have an issue with patient care.
00:17:27.039 -->
00:17:36.960And so a lot of those parts end up being inspected with high precision ordinary measuring machines to verify things like the injection mold before they make 100,000 of something or a million of something.
00:17:36.960 -->
00:17:44.000They'll check kind of first article or maybe even first and last objects in a shift to make sure there hasn't been any drift in the quality metrics.
00:17:44.000 -->
00:17:46.640In programming a CMM takes a long time.
00:17:46.640 -->
00:17:47.839It's a full-time job.
00:17:47.839 -->
00:17:52.160It's a very slow process to move the probe tip around and touch in a bunch of different places.
00:17:52.160 -->
00:17:54.799The interpretation of that data set can be somewhat complicated.
00:17:54.799 -->
00:17:58.079With Limafield, you get the full data set through one of our scans.
00:17:58.079 -->
00:18:08.799You can intuitively go into the geometry set your measurements, the things you care about for parallelism, perpendicularity, angles, dimensions, all of that you can do in our software program.
00:18:08.799 -->
00:18:15.119One, press a button and apply that to scans that you don't have to meticulously fixture and then wait several hours.
00:18:15.119 -->
00:18:20.079You can throw 20 of something in a scanner, get a bunch of data, and then have these measurements very quickly.
00:18:20.079 -->
00:18:26.640It's just a much easier, faster way to gather that same decision that maybe you had to make in the building field.
00:18:26.640 -->
00:18:28.240You can do 10 or 20 times as many.
00:18:28.240 -->
00:18:34.720You could have more confidence to operate on the edge of what's possible with your designs, your materials, your partners, your production processes.
00:18:35.039 -->
00:18:39.440Do you actually making and producing systems and selling them already?
00:18:39.440 -->
00:18:40.799This is an ongoing business.
00:18:40.799 -->
00:18:42.720This isn't just your normal startup, right?
00:18:43.039 -->
00:18:45.759We do between 10 and 100 million dollars of annual revenue.
00:18:45.759 -->
00:18:48.480We have multiple customers in the Fortune 500.
00:18:48.480 -->
00:18:51.039We have systems in North America, Europe, and Asia.
00:18:51.039 -->
00:18:54.160We're almost 200 employees at this point, offices on both coasts.
00:18:54.160 -->
00:18:56.960We've raised over 160 million dollars in venture capital.
00:18:56.960 -->
00:18:59.839Long way to go, but we're definitely a real business at this point.
00:19:00.079 -->
00:19:04.640Now you're in Cambridge, but your house offices in my neighborhood in San Francisco, correct?
00:19:04.799 -->
00:19:07.839We have about 50, 55-person office in San Francisco.
00:19:07.839 -->
00:19:09.680I'm out there about one week a month.
00:19:09.839 -->
00:19:10.640We're in San Francisco.
00:19:10.720 -->
00:19:12.400Oh, we're in Soma, right beside Oracle Park.
00:19:12.640 -->
00:19:14.240Where are the machines actually manufactured?
00:19:14.480 -->
00:19:16.319They're manufacturers here in Massachusetts.
00:19:16.319 -->
00:19:21.519We have a 20,000 square foot facility where we do all of our manufacturing for our hardware products in San Francisco.
00:19:21.519 -->
00:19:32.559We focus on software engineering, browser-based tools, the back end, our DevOps organization, some of our software RD, the construction algorithms, some product team members, a lot of our marketing team is in San Francisco.
00:19:32.559 -->
00:19:34.880And then our sales team is distributed around the country.
00:19:34.880 -->
00:19:37.440We think of manufacturing as a face-to-face business.
00:19:37.440 -->
00:19:41.039So our sales team is in California to access customers on the west coast.
00:19:41.279 -->
00:19:41.519Makes sense.
00:19:41.519 -->
00:19:41.759Yeah.
00:19:41.759 -->
00:19:44.400Come here for the software, go there for the hardware.
00:19:44.400 -->
00:19:45.599Makes perfect sense.
00:19:45.599 -->
00:19:47.839Oh, they're in it for just the venture capitalists.
00:19:47.839 -->
00:19:49.920You did have great success with venture capital.
00:19:49.920 -->
00:19:51.519Were they not from the Silicon Valley?
00:19:51.680 -->
00:19:51.920Yeah.
00:19:51.920 -->
00:19:54.799All of our VC money is from Silicon Valley for sure.
00:19:54.799 -->
00:19:59.680So we're definitely a traditional venture bag like Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital.
00:19:59.680 -->
00:20:04.160IVP, you know, Sandhill Road, or I guess most of them are up in San Francisco now.
00:20:04.400 -->
00:20:05.359Well, congratulations on that.
00:20:05.599 -->
00:20:07.039You're gonna have to pay it all back eventually, right?
00:20:07.039 -->
00:20:09.359So it's not about raising the money, it's about building the company.
00:20:09.359 -->
00:20:12.400And that's the thing I'm much more proud of than the fundraising.
00:20:12.400 -->
00:20:16.079But it helps you don't really celebrate stopping at the gas station on a road trip.
00:20:16.079 -->
00:20:18.319It's part of the process, but it's not the point in the trip.
00:20:18.559 -->
00:20:19.279That's a good way to put it.
00:20:19.279 -->
00:20:20.240Well, thank you very much.
00:20:20.240 -->
00:20:24.400That's been great talking to you and great to learn more about the technology and the products.
00:20:24.400 -->
00:20:25.039I wish you well.
00:20:25.039 -->
00:20:27.119CT-scanning definitely has a place.
00:20:27.119 -->
00:20:30.960Like I said, love to look inside things without having to put them back together.
00:20:30.960 -->
00:20:31.519Me too.
00:20:31.519 -->
00:20:32.400I think it will be great.
00:20:32.400 -->
00:20:33.279Thank you so much.
00:20:33.440 -->
00:20:34.480Appreciate you having me.
00:20:34.799 -->
00:20:40.960Thank you for listening to FoDES, the Future of Design and Engineering Software Show, brought to you by ENGtechnica.
00:20:41.519 -->
00:20:46.079I hope you have learned of a new application or technology that will help you with your job.
00:20:46.079 -->
00:20:57.759If you have an application you think would be of interest to other engineers, please let me know by emailing me at roopinder at engtechnica.com or message me on LinkedIn.
