Concept Laser Wins International AM Award

AMT — The Association For Manufacturing Technology (McLean, Va) is pleased to announce that Concept Laser GmbH (Lichtenfels, Germany) is the winner of the 2016 International Additive Manufacturing Award (IAMA). The award was presented at the Inside 3D Printing conference and Expo, as part of METAV 2016 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Founded in 2000, the company came out on top of 16 innovations from the U.S. and Europe competing for the prize. “The IAMA is welcome recognition for our hard work, but also evidence that we’re on the right track,” said Frank Herzog, the managing partner and founder of Concept Laser. “We are extremely proud to win this prestigious award. It is a great motivation to our company and others around the world to continue exploring the possibilities of additive manufacturing.”

Their winning innovation involves the first in-situ real-time process monitoring system in powder-bed-based additive manufacturing. It measures properties like size and intensity of the melting path’s thermal radiation in ultra-high resolution, and displays the data in correlation to the position of the melting bath on the workpiece’s surface and thus to the component’s geometry. This makes it easy for the user to localize and evaluate process anomalies during production.

“Our innovation enables downstream test processes to be reduced to a minimum, which helps to save both time and money,” noted Herzog. “In addition, the process offers an entirely new approach for research and development centers tasked not only with improving the process, but also new materials and component geometries.”

The IAMA was launched in 2014 by AMT in partnership with VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association; Frankfurt am Main, Germany) to support the growing field of additive manufacturing technology and foster the expansion of its industrial applications. This year’s entries were reviewed by an international jury, which included technologists from AMT, VDW, academia, the media and industry. The winner receives a $20,000 cash prize, plus a media package worth $80,000 for marketing the award-winning technology supported by media partners Gardner Business Media and VDI Nachrichten. CECIMO, the European Association of Machine Tool Industries, is a sponsor.

For more information on IAMA please click here.

“It’s exciting to see leading-edge companies from six different countries competing for the prize,” said Douglas K. Woods, the president of AMT. “Their impressive innovations show that the opportunities and challenges in additive technology are attracting the right kind of attention from innovators around the world.”

“Innovations like that from Concept Laser, show that the sector is doing intensive work on further industrial-scale implementation, focusing on all of the technology’s current challenges,” said Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, the executive director of the VDW. “This will progress the bandwidth of future applications.”

In attendance at this year’s award presentation, Jason Jones, PhD, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies Ltd., reflected on winning the inaugural IAMA. “It is impossible to emphasize how transformational receiving this award has been to our company. It absolutely made a step change difference in many ways and essentially put us on the map. We thank all those involved — AMT, VDW, Gardner, VDI and CECIMO – for sponsoring this award.”

Concept Laser is a leading manufacturer of industrial laser machines for fabricating components from metal powder. Its patented LaserCUSING® process (powder bed-based laser melting of metals) opens up new possibilities in designing components. The company’s customers come from many different sectors, including: medical and dental; aerospace; tool and mould construction; automotive; and watchmaking and jewelry. Their 3D metal printers handle powdered materials made from stainless steel and hot-work steels; aluminium and titanium alloys; and precious metals.

AMT represents and promotes U.S.-based builders and distributors of manufacturing technology – the high-tech machinery, devices, and digital products that enable advanced manufacturing. Located near the nation’s capital, they support their members by acting as the industry’s voice to grow its global competitiveness, speed the pace of innovation, and develop the smartforce of tomorrow. They also provide expertise in industry research and data, in addition to extensive international business support.

VDW has been representing the interests of the German machine tool industry for 125 years. Together with the German Engineering Federation’s Machine Tools and Production Systems Association, it numbers about 300 voluntary member companies that represent approximately 90 percent of the sector’s entire turnover.

They do much more than simply represent the industry’s interests to the public, the government, the academic community and business associates. Based on its in-depth knowledge of the industry and resulting expertise, VDW serves primarily as a service provider to its members that provides information, advice and support on individual issues in numerous fields. They also organize exhibitions for the international machine tool industry. It has over 90 years of experience in organizing events.

The Inside 3D printing conference was held on February 24-25 2016, at the Exhibition Centre in Düsseldorf, together with the METAV. It offers a complete conference agenda on the subject of additive manufacturing featuring metals and plastic components. The principle focus is on the following sectors: aviation, automaking, the tool industry and medical technology.

www.AMTonline.org,   www.concept-laser.de,  www.metav.de,  www.vdw.de