Review DDMC 2020

On June 23, 2020, the first virtual Fraunhofer Direct Digital Manufacturing Conference, DDMC 2020 took place, broadcast and moderated live from the Fraunhofer Forum in Berlin, with almost 20 speakers dialing in from all over the world. It was an exciting day with four keynotes by distinguished speakers from industry, short pitches by young researchers, lively discussions and award ceremonies.

Our congratulations go to the winners of the Best Paper Award (Lars Meyer and Gerd Witt from the University Duisburg-Essen, Germany, for their paper on “Investigation of the Track Width-dependent Melt Pool Characteristics During Laser-sintering of Polyamide 12 in Correlation to Various Focus Diameter”) and Best Poster Award (Konrad Gruber and his colleagues from Wrocław University of Science & Technology, Poland, for their work on “Tensile Properties of Titanium Ti-55511Alloy Processed by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF)”) – congrats, everybody!

The live day was the second part of the virtual Fraunhofer DDMC Conference, the first one consisting of pre-recorded video presentations for all conference papers, that will be available to all conference participants until the end of July.

Thank you!

We would like to thank our keynote and session speakers, and all participants for their contribution to this memorable event. Special thanks are also due to our sponsors Nanoval (gold sponsor), Hexagon simufact and InfraTec (silver sponsors) for their generous support!

1. What do you find most exciting about Additive Manufacturing?
2. Which key developments have taken place in AM over the last 5 years (in terms of technology, materials or applications)?
3. What big challenges is AM facing in coming years?
4. Of the many possibilities for AM technology, could you give us a brief description of one that you expect or hope will be developed in the near future?

Hans J. Langer (EOS GROUP, Germany)

»AM enables a new way of thinking along the entire digital value chain of a product – from design through production to spare parts, as such also facilitating completely new business models.«

Greg Fallon (Autodesk Inc., USA)

»The liveliness and constant change that drives technological advancement. Compared to other manufacturing industries, this is very remarkable and it is clear to me that the industry is reinventing itself.«

Timothy L. Weber (HP Inc., USA)

»One of the most exciting opportunities in Additive Manufacturing is creating new ecosystems and partnering with leading companies around the world, including GKN, Siemens, BASF and many others, to advance digital manufacturing. Experiencing the results of our efforts is always worthwhile, for example, changing business models based on the disruptive value propositions AM brings, like what we are seeing from SmileDirectClub.«

Janne Kyttanen (What The Future Venture Capital. USA)

»Business models are changing: From a value chain business to a value network based business.«

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Hans J. Langer (EOS GROUP, Germany)

»We managed to substantially decrease material costs and increase process productivity, as such making AM a key driver of digital manufacturing on a cost-per-part level compared to conventional.«

Greg Fallon (Autodesk Inc., USA)

»The way companies design and manufacture products changed. This concerns all technologies, which are getting more and more accessible even for SMEs as well as the available material selection.«

Timothy L. Weber (HP Inc., USA)

»New technologies coming to market in both plastics and metals, including advanced software and data capabilities, enabling better part economics and higher quality parts that is enabling a transformation from prototyping to manufacturing.«

Janne Kyttanen (What The Future Venture Capital. USA)

»Mindset shift of a silo technology to fully integrated factories, where AM may play a critical role in the chain, but it is only one part. AM is not a magical box, which can deliver it all. When the companies selling the technology start fully understanding this, their minds will expand and the industry will flourish.«

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Hans J. Langer (EOS GROUP, Germany)

»With its digital solution portfolio AM can disrupt conventional manufacturing, yet we need to demonstrate this for concrete applications and scale up production capacities accordingly.«

Greg Fallon (Autodesk Inc., USA)

»Manufacturing methods must become economic on a cost-per-part basis. The software side – and especially the design software side - has a big influence, so we can contribute our share to the industry.«

Timothy L. Weber (HP Inc., USA)

»The transition for engineers and designers to learn new design paradigms as they move from traditional manufacturing methods to AM based.«

Janne Kyttanen (What The Future Venture Capital. USA)

»Companies have to adapt to new business models. You can’t scale if you don’t focus. We used to sell magical technology, which can do a bit of everything. It will work in prototyping. It won’t work in manufacturing. Companies need to choose what they want to be doing.«

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Hans J. Langer (EOS GROUP, Germany)

»EOS LaserProFusion polymer technology will disrupt small series injection molding. Major parts of conventional custom casting applications will be disrupted by metal high productivity solutions.«

Greg Fallon (Autodesk Inc., USA)

»The manufacturing space and the construction space will step by step converge and take tremendous amount of costs and resources out of housing, commercial and municipal building projects.«

Timothy L. Weber (HP Inc., USA)

»With cost effective parts and high quality in AM, I expect to see more novel applications such as heat transfer, fluid dynamics, light weight, energy absorption, and vibration control.«

Janne Kyttanen (What The Future Venture Capital. USA)

»Something that I was hoping somebody would do, but nobody did. So we did. You will see on the conference.«

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