Additive Manufacturing Rises to the Top

The founder of EOS is named an influential person as the German company enters a Top 100 business list and joins with a machine tool builder to produce complex titanium medical implants at IMTS.

Dr. Hans J. Langer, the founder and chief executive officer of  EOS Electro Optical Systems GmbH (Krailling, Germany), has been named one of the Top 20 Most Influential People in a recent issue of the U.K.’s TCT Magazine. The list, compiled in part by reader nominations, was prepared for the twentieth anniversary of the magazine and recognizes those individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the additive manufacturing (AM) industry during the past twenty years.

An Additive Manufacturing (AM) process allows the fast and flexible production of high-end parts at a repeatable industry level of quality. This disruptive technology paves the way for a paradigm shift in product design and manufacturing. It accelerates product development, offers freedom of design optimizes part structures – also enabling lattice structures – and functional integration and, as such, creates significant competitive advantages for its customers.

Dr. Langer, a physicist who established EOS in 1989, has worked in the development, marketing and sales of laser-based solutions for decades. Over the years he has helped drive the evolution of laser-sintering from a prototyping technology to a high-quality manufacturing method with sophisticated process controls and a wide range of materials.

This manufacturing method includes plastics laser sintering, with such materials as PEEK HP3, and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) with such materials as titanium, cobalt chrome, and nickel alloys (such as IN 625 and IN 718) as well as sand laser sintering.  These processes are all scalable across major industries from aerospace, automotive, dental, medical, and industrial to consumer.

The company itself was recently named one of the Top 100 small- and medium-sized innovative businesses in Germany, receiving the prestigious award for the fourth time since 2007.

“Dr. Hans Langer is most deserving of this recognition,” says Terry Wohlers, the principal consultant and president of AM consulting firm Wohlers Associates. “He is among a very small number of people who have played an ongoing role in the successful development and commercialization of systems for additive manufacturing for more than 20 years.” Wohlers himself was again selected as one of the Top 20 for his work as an industry expert.

“In the pioneer days of additive manufacturing, a few of us could see its vast potential for creating end products unlike any then existing,” says Dr. Langer. “It’s thrilling to see laser sintering has realized that potential and more, and I’m ever grateful for having been a part of this adventurous journey.”

“Our business model would have been quite impossible without additive manufacturing,” says Lisa Harouni, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Digital Forming (London,UK) and another Top 20 winner. “Through EOS technology, we have been able to create an opportunity for consumers to co-design and individualize products in a way that has never before been widely available.”

Digital Forming is a sister company to WITHIN Technologies, whose FEA/CAD optimization software works with plastic and metal laser-sintering systems to create strong, lightweight parts, including novel, load-bearing lattice structures.