After initially validating our technological approach, we proceeded to thoroughly study the technical, commercial and financial feasibility of WEL-CUT.
Thanks to the support of the EASME through the excellent coaching service provided by our coach, we have been able to recruit a new industrial partner: Aramini Srl, a company with a track record of success developing and manufacturing precision automation machinery for different sectors such as cosmetics, winding, testing. Their presence in the WEL-CUT consortium consolidates our project and the whole supply chain. This has been a critical milestone, as they have investment capacity, which makes our project even more feasible from a financial point of view; they also count with distributors in France, Germany and China, that further consolidates our strong Italian distribution channel and their clients portfolio complements our own, which has boosted our sales projections, further validating commercial and financial viability. Finally, they are experts in automation, one of the critical developments to be performed during the upcoming Phase 2. Indeed, they have supported us to consolidate the cost-structure of WEL-CUT and refine our estimations in regards with required effort and associated investments to develop our first portfolio of products.
Apart from the presence of ARAMINI in our consortium, we have also been able to:
1. Built an advanced prototype of the BASIC model of our machinery that further validates WEL-CUT’s high quality welding & cutting processes.
2. Integrate our current solution into a single machine able to thermoform, weld and cut A-PET in an automated working cycle, minimizing current downtimes and greatly improving quality, which will let us achieve our goal of zero-defect production and cycle-times between 5 and 40 pieces per minute (depending on the size of the pieces).
3. We have also validated the feasibility of our Quality goal, as we have already achieved the same degree of transparency and welding/cutting quality currently achieved with PVC material.
4. We have carried out a thorough marketing study, including a survey among early adopters from main targeted segments, and derived from it the right first portfolio of machines, that perfectly combines features and price to satisfy the needs from these segments.
5. As mentioned, with the support of our new partner, we have refined our designs, paving the way for industrialisation and manufacturing upscaling, we have refined our cost-structure and validated our sales projections, which will let us recover the investment within first 3 years of business.
6. Finally, we have carried out a thorough freedom to operate study during this feasibility study showing that we do not infringe any previous patent/utility model.
