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Sustainability in additive manufacturing?

2019 has been the year of environmental sustainability, with global protests and increased political and social focus. The additive manufacturing industry isn’t an exception; sustainability is on the agenda. But how?

We are entering a new era for additive manufacturing now. One in which the increase in adoption for production applications requires the industry to mature and demonstrate the reliability, repeatability and quality of more established manufacturing techniques. This was clear during the recent Formnext 2019, where there was a significant message coming from most OEM’s, which was more focused on delivering on previous promises made of their technology. During the recent Formnext 2019, newly appointed CEO of EOS, Marie Langer, was asked about her priorities for the coming years, she discussed a focus on delivering repeatable and transferable processes, usability, quality and reliability. However, there was another significant topic that came up during that press event, and as the week progressed, it was a topic widely discussed on the Formnext floors. The topic was sustainability in additive manufacturing.

The topic was discussed in press conferences, in panel discussions, at networking events, and in one-on-one conversations.

For Marie Langer sustainability is a critical subject and one the whole industry should be championing. This was echoed by Brian Neff, CEO of Sintavia, who also commented on the opportunity and advantage AM has, as a more sustainable production technology than traditional subtractive manufacturing technologies. Langer spoke about developing more sustainable materials that could be recycled and re-used. Brian highlighted that for metal AM, there is far less material waste and that through distributed manufacturing, shipping could be reduced and therefore the overall carbon footprint of producing a part could be lowered.

The topic of sustainability was also taken up by Rush LaSelle, Senior Director, Additive Manufacturing, at Jabil Additive, as he was on a panel on Formnext TV. LaSelle described the benefits of distributed manufacturing from the perspective of sustainability. Moreover, senior leaders in companies like Carpenter Additive, HP, and DSM, made it clear, that sustainability is on the agenda. Camille Caron, HP’s Director of Education and Sustainability for their 3D printing business has recently written an article about this topic.

It seems clear that AM has the opportunity to lead the global manufacturing market as a sustainable production technology. The benefits offered through reduced material waste, supply chain innovations that reduce the needs for shipping parts thousands of miles, the use of recycled plastics and metals in materials, as well as the development of new recyclable materials, can all position AM as the most sustainable production solution for companies. It comes at a time where large companies are all under pressure to reduce carbon footprint and do more to protect and preserve the environment. Therefore this opportunity is one that could further support the acceleration of the AM industry as a whole. However, while this topic was widely talked about at a senior level, there is still very little being done to actually drive sustainability initiatives. Part of that problem likely lies with the question “Who is responsible?”. How many AM organisations, be they machine OEM’s, Materials Companies etc. have a Head of Sustainability, or at least an internal champion to take ownership? This is something Alexander Daniels Global are going to explore more and early in 2020 plan to prepare a report looking directly at what the major companies are doing to further this very important cause.

By Nick Pearce, Director of Alexander Daniels Global

The post Sustainability in additive manufacturing? appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

The State of the 3D Printing Talent Market

Alexander Daniels Global, a recruitment company specialized in Additive Manufacturing, has just released their third edition of their Additive Manufacturing Salary Study. The report covers all aspects of the talent market in the AM industry, including in-depth salary analysis and analysis of the scarcity of talent.

The study found a 3.9% increase in average salaries (across disciplines, seniorities and locations). This reflects a similar increase compared to other traditional manufacturing and engineering jobs/industries; proof that the AM industry is finding its place in the manufacturing sector. The biggest growth in 2018 was experienced within US for Sales and Software professionals, excluding C-level management, 14.5% and 11.9% respectively. The study dives into each discipline of the AM industry and uncovers the salaries by region and seniority.

The study found, that there is a general perception amongst AM professionals, that AM salaries are competitive, compared to salaries in similar industries. 37% of the survey respondents, believe that AM salaries are competitive or very competitive. This shows a positive change in the industry, and it signals how AM employers have started to realize the importance of being competitive in salary. The study goes on with Alexander Daniels Global explaining this industry change with two major arguments: the establishment and maturity of the industry, and the war for talent.

A section of the study covers and discusses the talent gap and the war for talent that still exists in the AM industry. Alexander Daniels Global quantifies and qualifies the talent gap of the industry, with analyses on the number of available professionals versus the number of jobs; the talent market with experience and disciplines; most in-demand roles and analyses of this; and the motivations to change jobs.

According to Alexander Daniels Global, at any one point, there are 4,000+ jobs relating to Additive Manufacturing being advertised globally. They suggest that the active talent pool with experience in the industry is less than 50,000. This means that there are only 12 active candidates, globally, for every job advertised. The study goes on arguing that even though this number may seem high, it really is not, when you take into account those 12 people could be based anywhere in the World and be from any discipline. Considering these factors, the actual relevant active talent pool per job is far smaller, maybe even as low as 1 or 2 relevant active candidates per role, but even still, they are unlikely to be based in the same location as the job being advertised.

This is the third consecutive year that Alexander Daniels Global publishes the AM specific salary study. The report has been created with the help of the entire AM industry and includes sections on the talent shortage, the most in-demand roles, AM salary competitiveness, the motivations and likelihood to change jobs, and in-depth salary analysis for each discipline of AM, across regions and seniorities.

Download your free version here.

For more information or questions, contact Social Media and Marketing Manager, Signe Damgaard, at signe.damgaard@alexanderdanielsglobal.com

3DPrint.com Offers So Much More Than Just the Latest 3D Printing News

Here at 3DPrint.com, we do our best to keep you up to date on all of the most important things happening in the industry today. Whether it’s current business news, a breakthrough research project or exciting new product, series on important topics, or the latest events, we’re here to tell you about it.

But, we’re not just news – we also offer giveaways, surveys, and so much more! For instance, 3DR Holdings, the owner of the website, recently acquired an interest in SmarTech Markets Publishing, which is the leading industry analysis firm in the additive manufacturing sector. It’s the only firm that provides granular market analysis for the 3D printing industry, and offers up yearly reviews, along with market reports on a wide range of topics, from materials and bioprinting to 3D printing software, metals, and the complete range of vertical markets for additive manufacturing. If you click on the Research tab at the top of our homepage, you’ll go straight to the SmarTech Analysis page, where you can browse reports and infographics to your heart’s content.

Speaking of SmarTech, the Events tab on our homepage includes a link to the Additive Manufacturing Strategies site, a yearly summit that 3DPrint.com co-hosts with the industry analysis firm. We are also both joining this summer’s Inside 3D Printing in Seoul, South Korea as co-producers.

We also have a place on our website where you access white papers from important industry players, like Stratasys and Formlabs, browse old webcasts, and sign up for our popular online training courses. Our next class, “Filaments, Materials and Software Considerations for 3D Printing,” starts tomorrow and will teach you about programs and tools you can use to build an exciting design project from scratch. Additionally, as a bonus, if you register for our latest course, you’ll get free access to our past lessons on related topics so you can keep building your skill set.

Another great feature 3DPrint.com offers is a Jobs board, which is linked to a career portal for 3D printing recruiting company Alexander Daniels Global. This board includes jobs from all 3D printing and advanced manufacturing disciplines in cities all around the US, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Seattle, and other countries as well, such as Canada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and Spain. Here’s just a small offering of the many available positions being advertised on our Jobs board right now:

Inside Sales Manager
Regional Sales Manager – Midwest
Field Service Engineer
Application Engineer
Process Engineer
Software Product Manager
Vice President of Operations
Business Development Manager – Material Applications
Engineering Quality Consultant
AM Lead – Aerospace
Product Manager – Sintering
Senior Software Engineer / Architect
Future Strategy Product Manager

One of the best, and fastest growing, features on 3DPrint.com is our online shop. We currently offer 3D printers from G3D and Dynamism, the latter of which will also provide installation and training on-site and through webinars. You can also purchase 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm spools of 3DPrint.com’s own brand of filament on the shop. Facilan C8, a novel material with higher impact strength than PLA and higher tensile strength than ABS, is available for $44.50 a spool, while high gloss Facilan HT can be purchased for $42.75.

If you’re interested in 3D scanners or books about 3D printing, our shop provides the latest search results from Amazon. If custom 3D printed fashion is what you’re looking for, we’ve got two vendors: Wiivv and its 3D printed shoes and insoles and the King Children app, which provides fashionable 3D printed prescription eyewear at a relatively affordable price.

3DPrint.com’s online shop also features two professional 3D printing service providers: Treatstock and 3DCompare.com. Both of these services are easy to use: simply upload your 3D model, customize it, finalize delivery, and checkout.

So remember – the next time you’re in need of something in the 3D printing industry other than news, be it filament, an online course, or a job, visit 3DPrint.com.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

3D Printing News Briefs: March 23, 2019

We’ve got plenty of business news to share in this week’s 3D Printing News Briefs, but first we’ll start off with something fun – the winners have been announced for this year’s Additive World DfAM Challenge. Moving right along, BeAM is now a Tier 2 member of the ARTC, and PostProcess Technologies has announced improved processing times for SLA resin removal. Protolabs is offering new anodizing services, in addition to teaming up with Wohlers Associates, and Arkema will soon open a new PEKK plant in the US. Continuing with new things, a new AM digital career growth platform just launched, and there’s a new open project call for the European AMable project. Finally, GoPrint3D is the new UK distributor for Mayku and its desktop vacuum casting unit.

Winners Announces for Additive World DfAM Challenge 2019

This week during an awards dinner at the Additive World Conference in Eindhoven, Ultimaker’s Steven van de Staak, Chairman of the 5-member jury for this year’s Additive Industries’ Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge, announced the two winners and their “inspiring use cases of industrial 3D metal printing.”

Obasogie Okpamen from The Landmark University in Nigeria won first place, and an Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer, in the student category for his Twin Spark Engine Connection Rod. While the connection rod that he redesigned for an Alfa Romeo 75 Twin Spark Turbo engine has not yet been fully tested, he won “because of the example it sets” for distributed localized manufacturing of spare parts with 3D printing. Dutch company K3D took home first place, and an Ultimaker 3, in the professional category for the Dough Cutting Knife it developed for Kaak Group, a leader in the bakery equipment world. The team integrated mechanical parts into the design, which can be 3D printed without any support structures and has improved functionality. The knife sits in a dough extrusion line and due to its light weight less knives and robot arms can do the same amount of cutting. This means that the extrusion line itself is cheaper. Furthermore the knife has been optimized for a cleaner cut with less knife sticking to the dough.

BeAM Joins Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre

Membership agreement signing ceremony held in ARTC

France-based BeAM, which has subsidiaries in the US and Singapore and was acquired by AddUp this summer, is now partnering with the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC) as a Tier 2 member in an effort to expand its research activities in southeast Asia. The center provides a collaborative platform, which will help BeAM as it continues developing its Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technology with companies from the aerospace, consumer goods, marine, and oil & goods sectors.

This summer, BeAM, which also became a member of the Aachen Centre for Additive Manufacturing earlier this month, will install its Modulo 400, featuring a controlled atmosphere system, at ARTC, so other members can safely develop non-reactive and reactive materials. The two will also work to develop process monitoring systems that can expand DED’s range of applications.

PostProcess Technologies Announces New Solution for SLA Resin Removal

A new and improved solution for SLA resin removal by PostProcess Technologies vastly improves process times by 5-10 minutes – quite possibly the fastest on the market. The system can clean up to five times as many parts before detergent saturation when compared to solvent resin removal, and is part of the company’s automated AM post-print offering. The patent-pending solution, which also reduces environmental hazards and preserves fine feature details, was validated with eight different resin materials in several production environments, and uses the company’s proprietary AUTOMAT3D software and SVC (Submersed Vortex Cavitation) technology in the DEMI and CENTI machines.

“PostProcess’ latest innovation of the most advanced SLA resin removal solution in the world reinforces our commitment to providing the AM industry with transformative post- printing solutions enabling the market to scale. SLA is one of the most popular 3D printing technologies in the world. No matter what volume of printing, any SLA user can benefit from the remarkable efficiencies of our solution’s decreased processing time, increased throughput, increased detergent longevity, and improved safety,” said PostProcess Technologies CEO Jeff Mize. “PostProcess has designed the world’s first complete SLA resin removal system, available only from the pioneers in forward-thinking 3D post-printing.”

The new SLA Resin Removal technology will be on display at PostProcess booth P21 at the upcoming AMUG Conference in Chicago. You can also read about it in the company’s new whitepaper.

Protolabs Offering Aluminum Anodizing; Partners with Wohlers Associates

As part of its on-demand production service, digital manufacturer Protolabs is now offering aluminium anodizing in response to demand from customers in need of a single-source solution. Anodizing forms a protective oxide layer by applying a thin, protective coat to the part, which increases abrasion resistance and creates a barrier against corrosion. The company will be offering two levels of this service for Aluminum 6082 and 7075: hard anodizing to ISI 10074 for parts requiring protection from harsh environments, and decorative anodizing to ISO 7599 for parts that need an aesthetic finish. All parts will be sealed, unless they need to be painted post-anodizing.

“Talking to our clients, we realised that if they needed to anodise an aluminium part it was often difficult for them to source and then manage a supplier. They not only have to do all the research and then raise a separate purchase order, but often find that the supplier only accepts large quantities of parts in an order, which isn’t great for low volume runs,” explained Stephen Dyson, Special Operations Manager at Protolabs.

“Keeping the entire production process with a single supplier makes perfect sense for manufacturers. It means they can get their finished parts shipped in a matter of days and our technical team can advise them through the entire process, right from the initial design of the part to the best approach for the final anodising finish.”

In other Protolabs news, the company is partnering up with AM consultants Wohlers Associates to jointly hold an immersive course on DfAM. The class, which is invitation-only, will take place over the course of three days near Raleigh, North Carolina, and will end at Protolabs’ 77,000 sq. ft. 3D printing facility. Olaf Diefel, Associate Consultant at Wohlers Associates, and Principle Consultant and President Terry Wohlers will lead the discussion, in addition to being joined by several Protolabs engineers who are skilled in polymer and metal 3D printing.

“Designing for AM offers unique challenges and opportunities not found in traditional design methods. Protolabs brings tremendous depth of expertise and leadership in 3D printing. We’re thrilled to work together to equip attendees with technical skills and manufacturing knowledge needed to unlock the full potential of additive manufacturing,” said Wohlers.

Arkema Opening New PEKK Plant

Arkema, one of the largest specialty chemical and advanced materials developers, has been busily producing polyetherketoneketone, or PEKK, in France. But this coming Monday, March 24th, it is celebrating its new Kepstan PEKK plant near Mobile, Alabama with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The durability and customizable abilities of PEKK make it a good material for a variety of 3D printing purposes. Monday’s event will take place from 10:30 am to 1:30, and will also include VIP comments and lunch. The increased volume of this PEAK material will shake up the high-performance polymer market making PEKK a viable alternative to PEEK and PEI.

New AM Digital Career Growth Platform Launched

A free interactive platform to help AM professionals enhance their skills and fulfill career opportunities is now launching. i-AMdigital, which counts HP as one of its backing partners, is a joint venture between AM industry recruiter Alexander Daniels Global, digital venture company TES Network, and web and UX design company De Wortel van Drie. The platform was created to develop a growing AM talent pool, and uses smart matching and AI to offer customized career advice, courses, training, and job opportunities.

“There just isn’t enough talent out there. At the same time the learning and development landscape for additive manufacturing is very fragmented. This makes it difficult for individuals and organisations alike to access courses that can help them upskill. i-AMdigital solves both problems through our digital career growth platform,” said CEO and Co-Founder Nick Pearce of Alexander Daniels Global.

“It is an essential tool for the AM industry that will allow talent to grow their career and make an impact in additive manufacturing. It will provide organisations access to a growing and educated talent force to address their hiring needs and a marketplace for learning and development that can help them upskill their existing workforce in the latest technologies.”

AMable Launches Second Open Project Call

The AMable project, which receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, has just launched its second project call for proposals and ideas that can be applied to AM. The project is continuing to look for new ways to innovate on services for mid-caps and SMEs in the EU, and chosen teams will receive support from the AMable unit.

AMable is a Factories of the Future (FoF) project participating in I4MS (ICT for Manufacturing SMEs), and is working to increase adoption of AM technologies through the EU. The project will build a digital model that will provide unbiased access to the best AM knowledge in Europe in an effort to support this adoption. For more details on the call, visit the AMable site.

Express Group Appointed New UK Distributor for Mayku

GoPrint3D, a division of Express Group Ltd, has just been named the new UK distributor for London startup Mayku. The startup created a desktop vacuum casting unit called the FormBox, which is a handy partner for your 3D printer. Once you create a 3D printed mold, you can put it inside the compact FormBox, which is powered by any vacuum cleaner and works with many materials like wax and concrete, to cast a series from it – putting the power of making in your own hands.

An architect forming a dome template on the FormBox.

“We are thrilled to have partnered with Express Group on our UK and Ireland distribution, building on our existing servicing and repair relationship,” said Alex Smilansky, Mayku Co-Founder and CEO. “When we founded Mayku, our goal was to bring the power of making to as wide an audience as possible. The partnership with Express Group will allow us to deliver a first-class making experience to more people than ever before.”

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

Find Your Next Job at 3DPrint.com’s Dedicated 3D Printing Career Board

Are you a fan of 3D printing who dreams of working with the technology for a living? Finding a job in the 3D printing industry may be easier than you think. The technology is becoming a part of nearly every sector of business, including manufacturing, medicine, the automotive and aerospace industries, education, and more. Search any job board with the terms “3D printing” or “additive manufacturing” and you might be surprised how many results come up.

On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great if there was a job board strictly for 3D printing-related careers? There are plenty of other job boards dedicated to specific career areas, such as medical professions, writing and editing, etc. 3D printing is growing enough as a field that it deserves its own dedicated career board – or at least that’s what we thought at 3DPrint.com, so we partnered with recruitment firm Alexander Daniels Global to create a job portal directly on the 3DPrint.com website.

If you’re in the midst of a job search, or thinking of advancing or changing your career, go take a look at the new job board and see if there’s anything that interests you. The board focuses specifically on the areas of sales, marketing, application engineering, service, research and development, software and director/C-level roles. While the jobs currently posted are in the United States and Canada, positions will be posted from all over the world, so no matter where you live, bookmark the site and come back from time to time to see if there may be something opening up in your area.

There’s a lot of concern about traditional manufacturing jobs disappearing, but the bright side is that advanced manufacturing technologies like 3D printing are swooping in to fill those voids. Advanced manufacturing is a growing, exciting sector, and we’d like to help you be a part of it if you want to be, so keep an eye on our new job board to see if your next career move may involve 3D printing.

If you get a job through our job board, let us know! Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.