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Leveraging skills, dedication and a Seneca education to build small businesses

PHOTO: JOANNE RATAJCZAK

Fedon Orfanidis (right) and Stephen Chan founded Pinnacle DDM Ltd. to provide clients with 3D models and engineering drawings for countless product designs.

“If you need something and you can’t say what it is, it’s like screaming without a voice.”

A 3D road map for the future of industrial design

Fedon Orfanidis and Stephen Chan
Co-founders,
Pinnacle DDM Ltd.

FEDON ORFANIDIS loves motor bikes. He races them, fixes them and owns many, including one that’s carbon electric. This love came honestly. His dad is a mechanic, and Fedon would push a broom around his shop, while learning about repairs and fabrication.

His fascination with machines and industrial design led him to Seneca’s Jane Campus and the Mechanical Engineering Technologist/Industrial Design program.

Not surprisingly, Fedon uses cars to explain the kind of work he and his business partner, Stephen Chan (also a Jane Campus grad), do through their new venture, Pinnacle DDM Ltd.

“Let’s say you have an old car with a broken water pump that they don’t make anymore,” says Fedon. “Even if it’s in several pieces, we can create a 3D scan of that, digitally stitch it together, and have somebody make a brand new one.”

Fedon and Stephen use what they call “the Cadillac” of portable 3D scanners to identify hundreds of thousands of points on an object and map them into solid 3D models and engineering drawings.

Mounted on a flexible, extendable arm, this scanner gives their customers an extremely accurate representation of the desired item for manufacturing purposes. The scanning possibilities are endless—everything from finger prints to chairs to a 1938 Duesenberg race car.

“It all depends on how accurately you can make that part,” says Fedon. “If you need something and you can’t accurately say what it is, you won’t get it. It’s like screaming without a voice.”

Like with any new technology, there is a learning curve, and customers need to be educated on its benefits. Fedon and Stephen—whose background is in 3D robotics scanning and chemical engineering—are finding that a lot of their time is spent “selling” their service and its benefits.

“We aren’t like a baker,” says Stephen. “We aren’t selling a loaf of bread. Everybody knows what a loaf of bread is. We are selling you on a technology that you didn’t know existed. We have to tell you what it is and show you how it can help your company.”

28 RED 2016