3D printing has an important role to play in local production

Additive manufacturing and 3D printing have already established themselves as important serial production technologies in certain sectors. But digital manufacturing is not only influencing manufacturing industries. It is also paving the way for innovation-driven, sustainable business models that focus on local production. Mario Fleurinck will explore this topic in his keynote presentation at this year’s Rapid.Tech in Erfurt on 10 and 11 June.

Mario Fleurinck, a serial entrepreneur and founder of InnoCrowd, won’t be talking about visions of the future in his keynote presentation at this year’s Rapid.Tech. Instead, he will be focussing on real companies and business models that are based on additive manufacturing. The Belgian 3D pioneer will discuss his experiences at various companies in the 3D printing sector from 1996 to today. This will include his time as Managing Director of the Belgian firm Melotte, where he used additive manufacturing to help transform the company into the world’s first digital factory.

Fleurinck bases his business decisions on resource efficiency and a waste matrix, which form the two economic pillars for all his commercial projects: on the one side, cost reduction and growth, and on the other, five sustainability criteria: energy efficiency, resource management, carbon footprints, recycling and reducing water consumption. Fleurinck will discuss the role the key technology of 3D printing can play in keeping jobs in cities, where ecosystems can be created that use a minimum of energy and resources, thereby bringing globalisation under control. He sees transforming analogue materials processing into sustainable, digital manufacturing processes with minimal raw material and energy consumption, as key to making business activities as sustainable as possible, with people once again as the central focus.

Further world-class speakers will be covering more hot topics in the other four presentations in the “Vision 3D” keynote session at Rapid.Tech 2015. Microsoft manager Adrian Lannin (USA) will discuss the impact of extensive support for 3D printing in Windows on additive manufacturing in existing and emerging market segments.

Peter Sander of Airbus Operations GmbH, Hamburg, will cover the opportunities in and challenges facing additive manufacturing for future industrial production. Frank Cooper (Birmingham City University School of Jewellery, GB) will focus on the use of direct metal laser melting (DMLM) in precious metal processing. American designer Francis Bitonti will describe the radical change 3D printing as a “displacing” technology has triggered in the fashion and lifestyle industry. As with all Rapid.Tech lectures, simultaneous interpretation (German<>English) will be offered during the keynote presentations.

The new “Vision 3D” keynote pass, available for the first time in 2015, grants pass holders entry to all five of the keynote presentations and the trade fair on 10 June. The pass, and all other trade fair and conference tickets, are available online now: www.rapidtech.de/startseite/tagungen/preise-tagung.html.

With its unique combination of a trade fair, user conference for new technologies, the Design Engineers’ Day, specialist forums for science, tools, aerospace and medical technology, GENERATIV, the forum for the Fraunhofer Alliance, and a conference, Erfurt’s Rapid.Tech has established itself as one of the world’s most renowned events for the additive manufacturing industry. Parallel to the trade fair on 10 and 11 June, Messe Erfurt will be hosting the third FabCon 3.D trade fair for prosumers and semi-professional users of 3D printers.

More information about Rapid.Tech and FabCon 3.D, including the complete programme for the user conference, the Design Engineers’ Day and specialist forums, can be found at www.rapidtech.de and www.fabcon-germany.com.