Author Archives: Puja Mitra

Kikkoman Selects Matterport’s Digital Twin Platform

SUNNYVALE, CA, Mar 27, 2024 – Matterport, Inc., announced that Kikkoman Corporation, the world’s leading soy sauce producer, has used Matterport’s Digital Twin Platform to create a digital twin of the company’s historic Goyogura soy sauce brewery.

Originally established in 1939 as a dedicated facility supplying soy sauce to the Imperial Household Agency of Japan, the Goyogura brewery produces some of Kikkoman’s premium series of soy sauces, including the ‘Goyogura Shoyu’ and the D2C exclusive brand, ‘Kikkoman Honten’. Although the brewery was moved to the current location in 2011 due to its age, it is still constructed with original elements of the historic facility like wooden barrels, stone walls, and gates, continuing to preserve its traditional brewing methods to supply the Imperial Household Agency with its world-renowned soy sauces.

Using Matterport’s Property Marketing solution, Kikkoman aims to offer factory tours to consumers so that it can be shared with the world. Enriched with notes, guides and videos, the digital twin serves as an educational resource for understanding and preserving the traditions and culture of soy sauce production.

The company is also considering Matterport’s Facilities Management solution for maintenance, repairs and measuring the space to reduce equipment management costs and time on site. By minimizing the need for personnel to physically enter and inspect the facility, the company would be able to save time and effort for hygiene management.

The Goyogura brewery was captured quickly with Matterport’s Capture Services and the Pro3, minimizing disruption to the facility’s operations and ensuring low-impact on the historic equipment. Equipped with lidar and RGB sensors, Matterport’s Pro3 produces both photo-realistic 3D tours and photos as well as detailed point cloud data that can be used for BIM (.ifc, .rvt) and CAD (.dwg) files.

“As part of the branding of the ‘Goyogura Shoyu’ and the ‘Kikkoman Honten’ series, we believed that allowing customers to see the traditional brewing methods of the production site would create interest in the craftsmanship of our brewing process,” said Kaname Tsuji, Manager of the EC Strategy Group, products management division. “Having seen the accuracy and smoothness of the technology, we considered Matterport capable of conveying the reality of the Goyogura brewery, providing access to areas of the facility which visitors cannot step in. We hope that through this special access, including views of the interior of our cedar brewing barrels, which are usually seen through glass, we will delight our customers as part of our exhibitions and communication on the D2C exclusive ‘Kikkoman Honten‘.”

“We are honored that Kikkoman, a symbol of Japanese food culture, is using our services,” said Howard Xiao, president and operating officer of Matterport Japan K.K. “We hope that by utilizing Matterport, the charm and craftsmanship of traditional soy sauce production will be passed on to generations to come, not only in Japan but also overseas. We also look forward to supporting Kikkoman’s consideration of uses in the future, such as our Facilities Management solutions, using the power of our digital twin platform as part of this journey.”

The ‘Goyogura Shoyu Brewery’ is part of Matterport Japan’s ‘Connecting Culture and the Future with Digital Twins’ project, which aims to digitize and widely share Japan’s cultural properties and historical buildings such as Aso Shrine, Tenzan Sake Brewery and others.

To learn more about Matterport’s solutions for property marketing, facilities management, or design and construction management, visit www.matterport.com.

About Matterport

Matterport, Inc. is the World’s #1 Digital Twin Platform* leading the digital transformation of the built world. Their groundbreaking platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 177 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction, and operations to documentation, appraisal and marketing.

Learn more at matterport.com and browse a gallery of digital twins.

*Largest digital twin cloud hosted platform for the built world sq.ft. scanned. Data on file.

Hexagon Partners with Nemetschek Group

STOCKHOLM, Munich, Mar 27, 2024 – Hexagon’s Geosystems division and the Nemetschek Group, a leading software provider for the AEC/O and media industries, announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the digital transformation within the AEC/O industry. As a first step, the partnership is driving the adoption of digital twins by offering their customers a seamlessly integrated end-to-end workflow for efficient and sustainable building operations

While huge amounts of data are created during the lifecycle of a building, much of this valuable information resides in silos and becomes outdated over time. Such incomplete and archaic information leads to poor and error prone decisions which negatively affect a building’s performance and increase operational costs. Nemetschek and Hexagon are both convinced that digital twins are key in transforming the industry and overcoming the challenges building owners and operators are facing. A digital twin enhances visibility, increases efficiency and delivers data-driven insights.

Hexagon leverages its end-to-end reality capture and Scan2BIM solutions to automatically capture accurate and real-time field data to create Digital Twins across all sectors. Furthermore, it uses its AI- powered solutions to support building analytics and simulations, generate progress insights as well as provide an immersive experience navigating assets during design, construction and operations through its VR/AR and positioning technology.

dTwin, Nemetschek’s new horizontal, open, and cloud-based Digital Twin platform delivers data-driven insights and helps customers to efficiently manage facilities from design to operations. It is the first solution in the industry that fuses all data sources of a building in one overarching view. dTwin is bringing together all relevant information from CAD/BIM, IWMS, and more with the real-time streams from building operations and thus provides value via visualization, data analysis and assets management. With the platform, owners and operators can optimize building operations based on real time information and data-funded decision criteria.

Jointly, Nemetschek and Hexagon will provide customers with the tools, services and expertise for an end-to-end digital twin workflow by joining the up-to-date building data through Hexagon’s latest reality capture solutions with the smart and efficient building operations powered by Nemetschek’s dTwin.

“The future is here — digital twins make work easier, insights available and decisions better,” says Thomas Harring, president at Hexagon’s Geosystems division. “With that, they are paving the way for a more sustainable future. Through our combined strength, we make this a reality for our customers and supercharge the buildings and infrastructure industry with data continuity and digital twins at scale.”

“We are very excited to partner with Hexagon”, says César Flores Rodríguez, chief division officer planning & design, and Digital Twin at the Nemetschek Group. “Together we will build digital twins for the large market of existing buildings, making those future proof. Also, we aim to address efficient and sustainable building operations and smart renovation, retrofit or revitalization projects.”

By bringing together the accurate building data and visual reality, information from CAD/BIM, IWMS, and the real-time streams from building operations, a digital twin enables data-driven decision making and true Building Lifecycle Intelligence.

About the Nemetschek Group

The Nemetschek Group is a leading global software provider for digital transformation in the AEC/O and media industries. Its intelligent software solutions cover the entire lifecycle of building and infrastructure projects and enable creatives to optimize their workflows. Customers can design, build, and manage buildings and infrastructures more efficiently and sustainably and develop digital content such as visualizations, films, and computer games more creatively. The software provider is driving innovations such as digital twins, open standards (OPEN BIM), and sustainability in the AEC/O industry, constantly expanding its portfolio by investing in deep-tech startups. More than seven million users worldwide are shaping the world with the customer-focused solutions of our four divisions. Founded by Prof. Georg Nemetschek in 1963, the Nemetschek Group today employs around 3,600 experts globally.

The company, which has been listed in the MDAX and TecDAX since 1999, achieved a revenue of EUR 851.6 million and an EBITDA of EUR 257.7 million in 2023 according to preliminary figures.

For more information, visit www.nemetschek.com.

About Hexagon

Hexagon is the global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies. They are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, quality and safety across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, public sector, and mobility applications.

Their technologies are shaping production and people related ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous – ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.

Hexagon has approximately 24,500 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 5.4bn EUR. Learn more at hexagon.com.

Velo3D Announces $2M Q4 Revenue with $58M Loss

CAMPBELL, CA, Mar 27, 2023 – Velo3D, Inc., announced financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 ended December 31, 2023. For the fourth quarter of 2023, the company reported revenue of $1.8M, down 92% compared to $24M in the third quarter of 2023. Net loss was $58.2M.

“2023 was a transformational year for the company as we re-aligned our strategic and business priorities from driving revenue growth to ensuring customer success, improving system reliability and materially reducing our cost structure,” said Brad Kreger, CEO of Velo3D. “We are pleased with the significant progress we are making related to our key initiatives as we have significantly reduced our costs and materially improved our operational efficiency. Additionally, our new go to market approach is paying dividends as we have resumed our bookings growth, including signing a number of new, strategic customers in the defense industry with Kratos Defense and Bechtel Plant Machinery. I remain very excited about our market opportunities in 2024, especially in defense given the recent $825 billion Department of Defense funding approval. We have already received one purchase order tied to this approval and expect we will close additional orders by the end of the quarter as a result. I firmly believe the benefits from our re-alignment are just beginning.”

“The entire Velo3D team remains focused on these four objectives and we’re beginning to see these changes yield results, including existing customers purchasing new systems. We believe this reflects their confidence in our technology as well as the success of our initiatives in improving customer satisfaction,” said Kreger. “We’re continuing to execute on our cost realignment programs to improve margins and cash flow, while prudently managing working capital. By doing so, we believe we are well positioned to profitably capitalize on the increasing industry demand for leading-edge additive manufacturing solutions.”

A complete chart of the financial results is available here.

About Velo3D

Velo3D is a metal 3D printing technology company. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), has a unique ability to improve the way high-value metal parts are built. However, legacy metal AM has been greatly limited in its capabilities since its invention almost 30 years ago. This has prevented the technology from being used to create the most valuable and impactful parts, restricting its use to specific niches where the limitations were acceptable.

Velo3D has overcome these limitations so engineers can design and print the parts they want. The company’s solution unlocks a wide breadth of design freedom and enables customers in space exploration, aviation, power generation, energy, and semiconductor to innovate the future in their respective industries. Using Velo3D, these customers can now build mission-critical metal parts that were previously impossible to manufacture. The fully integrated solution includes the Flow print preparation software, the Sapphire family of printers, and the Assure quality control system—all of which are powered by Velo3D’s Intelligent Fusion manufacturing process. The company delivered its first Sapphire system in 2018 and has been a strategic partner to innovators such as SpaceX, Honeywell, Honda, Chromalloy, and Lam Research. Velo3D has been named as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023.