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Food & Agriculture Industry Manufacturing
Fathom plays a pivotal role in growing these tasty industries.

Engineered parts play many vital roles in moving food from the farm field to your dinner table. From giant planting, irrigation and harvesting equipment and animal feeding systems to complex food and beverage processing machines, engineered parts help keep the farming and food production industries productive, profitable and safe. A variety of manufacturing methods are used to make these vital parts, including sheet metal fabrication, injection molding, CNC machining and industrial 3D printing services. Together, they have helped to make American agriculture and food production the most innovative and productive in the world.

How Can Fathom Help You with Your Food & Agricultural Part Needs?

We can…

  • Provide you with engineering assistance to help you optimize your agricultural or food processing part designs for manufacturability, reliability and longevity.
  • Support your need for iterative product development via rapid prototyping, so you can bring your new product innovations to market faster.
  • Help you select the best materials for each component to help ensure it provides optimal performance and longevity in your critical applications.
  • Support you throughout the product life cycle – from rapid prototyping of new part designs through bridge and production manufacturing.
Agriculture manufactured parts
Food Industry manufacturing

Technologies for the Food Industry

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Sheet Metal Fabrication

Sheet metal fabrication is used to form a variety of components for food and beverage processing equipment. Typical parts include brackets, enclosures, connectors and assemblies.

Fathom can fabricate both small, complex parts such as brackets and fixtures and large structures like housings and enclosures. Rapid prototyping can be used to validate part designs and bring them to market faster.

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Injection Molding

Injection molding is used to make a variety of parts used in food processing equipment, as well as preparation and serving of food. Here, food-grade plastic materials are favored by designers and engineers. Rugged injection-molded plastic parts are also used in conveyor belts that move food and beverages throughout the production process.

Fathom offers both domestic and overseas injection molding solutions to meet a variety of needs and price points.

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Precision CNC Machining

Because of tight regulations from the FDA and other government agencies, food production equipment and the parts that go into it must be built to the highest standards. Many of these parts require exceptional dimensional accuracy and tight tolerances. Components must be free of burrs and must be built to facilitate easy cleaning and sanitizing.

Our CNC machining service facilities do some of the most advanced, precise machining work in the country, including tough materials like stainless steel, titanium and Inconel.

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Additive Manufacturing

3D printing is increasingly used to develop prototype parts for commercial food preparation equipment because it enables rapid iteration of part designs – without the need for tooling. This is critically important in the highly competitive consumer products industry, where being first to market with a new food product can be worth millions of dollars.

Designers can also use additive technology to quickly bring new ideas to life for food preparation tools and appliances. It also enables engineers to create part designs that would be impossible or impractical to produce using any other technology.

Fathom can produce rugged plastic parts using additive technologies like Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Multi Jet Fusion (MJF). Additive metal technology, such as Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), is an ideal fit for more demanding applications. Fathom is one of the largest industrial 3D printing services in North America, with over 40 years of expertise in additive technologies.

Fathom offers decades of expertise helping its customers optimize their part designs for additive manufacturing and select the materials and manufacturing methods that will meet their requirements. Our rapid prototyping services can help you validate your designs and bring them to market faster. We also provide a full range of post-processing services to ensure that your additively manufactured parts meet all your cosmetic and functional requirements.

Applications in the Food Industry

Fathom parts used in the food industry include:

Sheet Metal Fabrication

  • Brackets
  • Connectors
  • Assemblies
  • Enclosures
  • Pizza sheets

CNC Machining

  • Pump shafts
  • Spray bars
  • Rotors
  • Centrifugal pump components
  • Extruders
  • Forming mandrels
  • Knife shafts
  • Rollers
  • Actuators

Injection Molding

  • Components for food processing equipment
  • Conveyor parts

Additive Manufacturing

  • Components for food processing equipment
  • Conveyors
  • Kitchen tools and appliances
Agriculture industry parts

Technologies for the Agriculture Industry

Additive Manufacturing Icon

Additive Manufacturing

Increasingly, farm equipment manufacturers are using additive manufacturing to prototype new part designs for fit, finish and functionality, and to bring them to market faster. 3D printed parts are also being used to replace metal, saving weight and improving durability.

Additive manufacturing is making a big impact on other segments of the agricultural industry, including planting equipment, irrigation systems and machinery used in the care and feeding of farm animals.

Fathom can produce rugged plastic parts using additive technologies like Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Multi Jet Fusion (MJF). Additive metal technology, such as Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), is an ideal fit for more demanding applications. Fathom is one of the largest industrial 3D printing services in North America, with over 40 years of expertise in additive technologies.

Fathom offers decades of expertise helping its customers optimize their part designs for additive manufacturing and select the materials and manufacturing methods that will meet their requirements. Our rapid prototyping services can help you validate your designs and bring them to market faster. We also provide a full range of post-processing services to ensure that your additively manufactured parts meet all your cosmetic and functional requirements.

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FRP Composite Layup

One of Fathom’s biggest roles in the agricultural industry is producing body, hood and roof panels for development vehicles and service production parts out of glass fiber composite material using FRP layup. Many equipment manufacturers use Fathom to produce these parts because we can do so quickly, at a high level of quality, without time-consuming and expensive tooling. This makes FRP layup an ideal fabrication technique for their development vehicles and service production parts.

This hand layup technique has been used since the 1940s and creates structures that are both lightweight, strong and have a high-quality finish. It’s highly dependent on the skills of the people doing it. The experts on the Hartland team have been successfully building fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) parts using this technique for over 40 years.

How does FRP layup work? First, large patterns are built to match the exact contours of each piece. These may be custom-milled out of wood or high-density foam. They may also be 3D printed. Next, Fathom’s FRP experts soak fabric strips in resin and then lay them into the pattern to form a uniform thickness. Once cured, these panels are sanded and painted, and hardware is attached to the unfinished side so the panels can be attached to the machine.

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Injection Molding

In the agriculture industry, injection-molded parts are prized for their durability, which enables them to withstand prolonged wear and tear. They can also handle environmental extremes and exposure to chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides. In some cases, they are used as replacements for metal parts to reduce cost and weight.

Injection-molded parts also have excellent hygienic properties. That makes them especially valuable for applications that involve the cleaning, feeding, birthing and milking of animals on the farm.

Fathom offers both domestic and overseas injection molding solutions to meet a variety of needs and price points. Rapid steel tooling is available from ICOMold by Fathom.

Sheet metal prototyping icon

Sheet Metal Fabrication

Sheet metal fabrication is instrumental in the agricultural industry. From farm equipment and irrigation systems to feeding systems and milking machines, fabricated metal provides excellent durability and strength at an affordable price. Fabricated metal parts can also be customized to meet a wide variety of needs, helping agricultural producers improve their productivity and reduce labor requirements.

Fathom can fabricate both small, complex parts such as brackets and fixtures and large structures like housings and enclosures. Rapid prototyping can be used to validate part designs and bring them to market faster.

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CNC Machining

CNC machining automates the processes of drilling, shaping and cutting, which makes it well-suited for the production of high-quality agricultural tools and equipment. Many components used in agricultural equipment have complex shapes that require tight tolerances. CNC machining can produce new and repair parts with exceptional precision and repeatability. Because CNC machining can work with many types of metals, it can be used to make extremely durable wear parts for plows and other ground-engaging implements.

Our CNC machining facilities specialize in challenging applications, like working with extremely tight tolerances and exotic materials. We even work with specialized materials like Inconel and Monel, two of the world’s toughest alloys.

Applications in the Agriculture Industry

Fathom parts used in the agricultural industry include:

Additive Manufacturing

  • Sensor systems
  • Drone components
  • Precision planting and irrigation parts

FRP Composite Layup

  • Body panels, doors and cab roofs for farm equipment

Injection Molding

  • Equipment controls
  • Cab components
  • Soil testing components
  • Precision irrigation components
  • Augers

Sheet Metal Fabrication

  • Body panels
  • Doors
  • Brackets
  • Enclosures
  • Connectors
  • Assemblies

CNC Machining

  • Shafts
  • Gears
  • Ground-engaging tools
  • Spray control components
  • Irrigation components
  • Plow components
  • Sprockets
  • Cooling fins

Quality is Fathom’s Number One Priority

At Fathom, our commitment to in-house inspections enables us to turn around parts quickly, including CMM validation, surface inspections and tensile strength testing.

In addition, we have a proven ability to comply with customer-specific process, material and workmanship standards.

Certifications

Visit our detailed list of Fathom certifications to view registrations held by each of our sites.

Fathom tech performing quality control

Why Choose Fathom?

  • We have the systems, processes and technical expertise to be able to deliver short-run, highly customized parts that meet your requirements.
  • We’re focused on new product innovation, rapid prototyping and bridge/short-run production. We can match your speed and agility.
  • We can support your needs throughout the product development lifecycle – from early prototypes for design validation and late-stage prototypes to verify fit, finish and functionality as well as bridge production and full production.
  • We offer an unmatched breadth of manufacturing technologies – in-house, not via third parties – to meet all your needs, including injection molding, sheet metal forming and precision CNC machining. We also offer over four decades of expertise in industrial 3D printing services and seven additive technologies to meet your needs.
  • We’re problem solvers. Bring us your complex geometries, short-run/high-mix parts and “impossible” projects. We’ll help you get the work done!
  • We have the systems, processes and technical expertise to be able to deliver short-run, highly customized parts that meet your requirements.
  • We’re focused on new product innovation, rapid prototyping and bridge/short-run production. We can match your speed and agility.
  • We can support your needs throughout the product development lifecycle – from early prototypes for design validation and late-stage prototypes to verify fit, finish and functionality as well as bridge production and full production.
  • We offer an unmatched breadth of manufacturing technologies – in-house, not via third parties – to meet all your needs, including additive manufacturing, injection molding, sheet metal forming and precision CNC machining.
  • We’re problem solvers. Bring us your complex geometries, short-run/high-mix parts and “impossible” projects. We’ll help you get the work done!

Across National
Time Zones

Precision manufacturing
from coast to coast.

HEADQUARTERS //
1050 Walnut Ridge Drive
Hartland, WI 53029
877-328-4668

ARIZONA
444 W. 21st St. Ste. 101
Tempe, AZ 85282
480-966-2300

CALIFORNIA
46758 Lakeview Blvd
Fremont, CA 94538

COLORADO
7770 Washington St.
Denver, CO 80229
303-288-6855

ILLINOIS
1207 Adams Drive
McHenry, IL 60051
815-385-7500

1401 Brummel Ave
Elk Grove, IL 60007
847-952-8088

MINNESOTA
13758 Johnson Street NE
Ham Lake, MN 55304
763-755-7575

NEW YORK
1920 Slaterville Rd.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-277-7070

401 W. Shore Blvd.
Newark, NY 14513
315-331-7680

TEXAS
1513 Sam Bass Rd.
Round Rock, TX 78660
512-255-1477

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