it would be really useful at this stage to get an approximation of your short and medium term requirements re throughput. The reason for this is that it will greatly help define what is a suitable mechanism. And some setups are eminently scaleable, some less so.

@bobi

the short term goal (once i start working on this full-time in ~6 months) is to build an open source system to automate Grid Beam production that anyone can build using off-the-shelf parts. meanwhile i'll want to try my hand at marketing Grid Beam kits as a consumer product.

so let's say to start we aim to sell 1 kit with 16 * 2.4m (~40m) of Grid Beam per day.

the mid term goal is to provide sustainable livelihood through open source manufacturing. to be sustainable the income from producting Grid Beam should pay off the investment of the automation system, provide a living wage for labor, provide income to those who worked on the automation system, provide income for any sales and marketing, pay for regular space and material costs, and pay off any other external costs.

some back of the napkin calculations (with help from @DMT in %pj8206o...)

• the material price of 40mm x 40mm wood is ~$3.4 NZD per meter
  • a 2x6 (sold as 140mm x 45mm) is $10.16 NZD per meter
  • TODO: ask Cut to Size how much for pre-cut 40mm x 40mm wood (%IpgIxLtiPrKzA8t9w1uarXevSEqDjZokA7XGeaZ9758=.sha256)
• the OG gridbeam.com folx sell Grid Beam for $3 USD per foot (~$10 USD per meter, ~$15 NZD per meter)
• if we assume cost of pre-cut 40mm x 40mm wood is $5 NZD per meter, and sell pre-drilled Grid Beam for $10 NZD per meter, then raw income is $5 NZD per meter of Grid Beam
  • $ / hour = ($5 / meter) * (meters / hour)
• so for example, if we want a raw income of $100 per hour, we need to produce 20 meters per hour
  • or if we want a raw income of $100k per year, and we assume 250 work days per year with 8 hours per day, then we need to produce 50 meters per hour
• each meter of 40mm beam has 2 * 25 holes to drill
  • so 50 meters per hour is 2,500 holes per hour or ~0.7 holes per second

so i'm not sure whether this answers your question, but there are some numbers to put the business economics in perspective. that being said, as an engineer i'm not too worried about how to supply beams as a limiting factor, i think the much harder challenge will be how to drive demand for beams.