The team at Driven Grow knew they had to take the leap on pre-roll automation. Between five cultivation facilities, they were growing more cannabis than they could roll, says packing manager Dave Nugent.
They had a team of eight people cranking out 3-5k pre-rolls per shift with knock boxes, and then manually weighing and folding each pre-roll, Nugent recalls.
All the plant material they couldn’t get to in time? Instead of premium space on the dispensary shelf, Nugent reveals, maybe the team could formula it into another product, otherwise sell it for cheap on the wholesale market.
That is what you call a production bottleneck with diminishing returns.
Pre-roll production alone had pushed the business back on its heels, putting the in constant reactive mode, all signs pointed toward automation.
“We weren’t able to actually package all of our products, our pre rolls, because we just physically couldn’t roll that many pre-rolls,” Nugent recalls.
Since embracing reliable pre-roll automation, the story behind the scenes at Driven Grow has taken on a much healthier trajectory.
The Immediate Impact of Automation
Dave Nugent first encountered Hefestus Pre-Roll Automation at MJBizCon, where the team was turning heads with the latest version of their Aura Pre-Roll Machine.
One of the biggest selling points for Nugent was that the Hefestus machine folded the pre-rolls, never twisted them. He had never seen another pre-roll machine fold the joints like that. “Driven Grow has always folded its pre-rolls,” Nugent says, and being able to automate that was priceless.
As with all its clients, Hefestus spent five days on site, installing and training the team on how to work with the machine.
“At first there was some resistance because people were worried about it replacing their job and everything, but no one liked doing pre-rolls before, so now they don’t mind,” Nugent says, explaining that pre-roll automation has allowed him to spread the team out across their different product SKUs – increasing overall production without having to hire new people.
“We have so many other products and SKUs that we manufacture and package here, that taking a third of my staff just to do pre-rolls was kind of crazy prior to the machine,” Nugent says.
In essence, with the one machine from Hefestus, Driven Grow has doubled pre-roll output to 200,000 pre-rolls per month while reducing labor from eight people to three.
“We’re already thinking about buying a second machine,” Nugent says.
Engineered Differentiation & Simplistic Sophistication
Like anyone else who sees the Aura Pre-Roll Machine in action, Nugent enjoys watching the Aura’s pneumatic chopsticks fold each pre-roll.
He’s right, no other machine does this.
However, another key feature Nugent appreciates about the machine is its size.
“It’s a perfect footprint. Three and a half feet by three and a half feet like the size of a pallet by four foot tall. It doesn’t take up a lot of space,” Nugent says. “That’s really important for us because we just keep growing and running out of room as we go.”
The machine is also easy to work with, Nugent continues. Easy to clean, easy to dissemble, and easy to learn.
“Our longest downtime was six hours,” Nugent reveals, adding that the Hefestus team is always available to quickly guide him through any troubleshooting with the Aura.
“The Hefestus support team has been awesome. They’re always on it and very responsive,” Nugent says.
“The technician that installed the machine is available 24/7, so I’ve called them at two in the morning, and they’ve answered and walked us through some fixes. So it’s been fantastic actually.”
“Hefestus Understands the Market”
Looking back, Nugent is thankful he went with Hefestus for several reasons. A lot of the other pre-roll automation options out there were too complicated, took up too much, were too expensive, or all of the above.
“[With those other options], I don’t believe we’d be getting the same quality that we are here,” Nugent says, adding that he’d easily recommend Hefestus to other pre-roll manufacturers as well.
“Hefestus seems to understand what the market needs, and I would definitely recommend the machine. We plan to purchase a second one within a year.”
