Heather Miller
Construction and manufacturing aren’t industries you’d typically associate together. But these two worlds are colliding—in a good way. Prefabrication has become a great solution to help mitigate industry challenges like tight timelines and labor shortages. However, prefabrication, which requires both construction and manufacturing processes, is undergoing its own transformation, too.
Take Progress Group for example. Based in Northern Italy, they are different from other 3D concrete printing companies and technologies. Their goal isn’t to print houses or walls, but components such as facades, formwork, and complex shapes.
Progress Group is advancing construction automation with its innovative 3D printing technology, Selective Paste Intrusion (SPI). Developed by Progress Group’s 3D Innovation Lab, this high-resolution concrete printing method builds parts layer by layer, using a sand scattering unit and a precision print head.
Progress Group epitomizes this manufacturing and construction convergence by connecting Autodesk Revit for building design, Autodesk Inventor for detailed engineering, and Autodesk Fusion for manufacturing. For example, an architect may design a façade in Revit. Progress Group can take that data and prepare it for manufacturing in Fusion. Fusion “slices” the parts and packages them into a file to transfer to the machine.
Learn more about their process and the impact of this new technology and approach in the video below.