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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.