If you’ve spent any time on a shop floor, you know the thing that keeps a shop running isn’t the machine. It’s the person standing in front of it — the one who can look at a print, look at a photo of a botched part, and just know why the tool chattered. And more importantly, how to fix it to prevent that from happening again.
That knowledge is enormous. And it’s also fragile. It mostly lives in one veteran’s head. And when that person retires, it walks out the door with them. Until now. Meet Swarf, an AI assistant for CNC machinists and programmers
Swarf can read your drawings, photos, and spec sheets. It’ll simulate G-code with virtual material removal so you can watch the cut — and this is key — before you run it on a real machine. It’ll generate G-code from a 3D model with your shop’s context baked in. And when something goes sideways at the tool, it’ll help you troubleshoot the cutting problem instead of leaving you to eyeball it alone.
Swarf is the brainchild of Riley Hutchinson, a born-and-raised Oregonian working out of the southeast corner of Gresham. Before this, he spent roughly a dozen years as a CNC programmer and technical lead at Boeing Portland — the company’s largest fabrication site — before leaving to build something of his own.
Swarf is in beta right now, and the team is actively looking for shops to partner with and help shape where it goes next. If you’re running a shop — or programming for one — and that knowledge-transfer problem keeps you up at night, then this one is definitely worth a look.
For more information, visit swarf.app.
