Ted Acworth, founder and CEO of Artaic, a Boston, Massachusetts-based mosaic manufacturer, was awarded a $250,000 grant as part of the Massachusetts Manufacturing Accelerate Program, or MMAP, at the Mash-Up 2022 Ceremony. The MMAP award aims to co-invest in small-to-medium-sized manufacturers to better prepare their businesses to meet the demands of Industry 4.0, the innovation-driven production methods powered by smart technologies such as data analytics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, automation, and connected technologies to stay competitive.
"We are on a mission to make the mosaic medium more accessible, and the grant will help in leading the way—not just through faster, better, and cheaper product manufacturing, but also in funding more technology that speeds up and further customizes our design renderings and physical sample production,” Acworth said. “This enables even faster and more customized proposal materials to our A&D specifiers, which helps provide better service to their customers, enhanced production and offerings."
Acworth plans to continue to progress the technology in mosaic manufacturing, using his expertise as a trained mechanical engineer to continue the push to make the medium more accessible. Cost, lead time, and customization are at the forefront of the changes the new technology will bring. According to Acworth, the new system will be used in tandem with Artaic’s unique patented technology of 15 years (developed by Acworth) and will offer a 5x throughput improvement over the brand’s fifth-generation production work cell that was developed in-house, increasing assembly work cell production by a rate of 500%.
