10/23/13

"Made in Belgium" 3D Printed Titanium Spectacles.



Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte, combines sustainable state-of-the-art technology with creativity for producing customized spectacles for the optician market. This is the basis of a succesful collaboration between the industrial company Melotte and the famous Belgian designer and optician Patrick Hoet.

Patrick Hoet and his design team developed the first 3D printed spectacles in titanium which are unmakeable using existing conventional manufacturing methods.
 

Congratulations Patrick, Mario and your teams for this great achievement!
 
At the launch of these unique glasses Patrick Hoet and Mario Fleurinck invited the Belgian press to present 3D physic titanium models which are available in the market in seven different combinations of specific lens and nose measurement.
 
Both companies say goodbye to product own tooling and use one 3D file for printing no matter which unique pair of spectacles in titanium!
 
No more stock risks, less use of raw material and energy, less waste and less transport result in an environmental impact reduction of factor 8. 100% local added value "Made in Belgium" with a world wide exposure on different continents.
 

6/6/13

Melotte: National Energy Globe Award Winner, most prestigious sustainability price!

 
Goal of the ENERGY GLOBE AWARD is to present successful sustainable projects focusing on energy efficiency, which conserve and protect planet's resources or that employ renewable energy, to a broad audience.
 
Melotte is proud to be awarded for the Belgian national level of the Energy Globe Award, the most prestigious environmental award worldwide.


An international jury, chaired by Maneka Gandhi, has evaluated all 1.051 submissions from 161 participating countries and selected the national winners which are also still running for the international award, Energy Globe World Award for Sustainability.



Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte, transforms contemporary disruptive industrial activities into innovative business models based on a sustainable process called Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM). "We create local prosperity using a process with an international leverage". Meaning customized state-of-the-art technologies to reduce dramatically the amount of natural resources and energy necessary for production based on Additive Manu-facturing in metals (also called 3D Printing) in a full digital process without using molds.
 
Melotte's outstanding project "Manufacturing without Molds" represents an environmental damage reduction of factor 8 through design optimization, DDM and shorter supply chain focusing on the increase of social, economic as well as ecological added value.
 
"The future economy will rather be driven by welfare than financial prosperity."
 
 
For more information on our project please visit 
 
  

5/23/13

Melotte, finalist Grote Prijs voor Toekomstige Generaties!


"De Stichting voor Toekomstige Generaties" has nominated Melotte as Winner for the Belgian province Limburg to be awarded the  "Grote Prijs 2013" of their organisation. Who the Ambassador of the Future Generations 2013  will become, shall be announced in Brussels on 11 June next.
 
Are you convinced that Melotte with Direct Digital Manufacturing puts the principles of sustainable development into practice daily? Then please do not hesitate to vote here and now via online voting http://gp-toekomstigegeneraties.be/category/kandidaten/
 
and make Melotte the most favourable candidate to win the Price of the Public 
 

Creation and knowledge sharing are two fundamental pillars of our society which allow individuals to develop his or her talents fully and turn them into value.  The result of creation is mainly consumer products – analogue and digital – of which the cradle-to-cradle process has an impact on our society and the planet’s own capacity and health. Keeping both in check and balance will be the major challenge of the  21st century. Melotte translates these challenges into sustainable yet competitive business models and production ecosystems evaluating systematically the impact of manufacturing based on optimal energy and raw material efficiency. Today Melotte realizes an environmental impact decrease of factor 8 in line with the recommandations of the EU Agenda 2020.

Your vote can make the difference as well!

5/21/13

The Aftermarket in 2023: How 3D/4D printing could change the Aftermarket Manufacturing landscape of the future


EPP Conference Frankfurt, June 20t.


Practitioner Point of View:

Mario is a passionate serial entrepreneur with focus on the development of sustainable manufacturing technologies.  With these innovations he aims to create business models that go far beyond the economic globalisation.  He believes that technology and manufacturing are playing a significant role in redesigning our social economic models.  Inspired by his holistic view and in the light of the growing global economic and geopolitical unbalance, Mario emphasizes a decentralised manufacturing approach with focus on optimal energy and material resources management.  

"What if our aftermarket needs would be filled in and materialized by cloud connected 3D-printers using a minimum on energy & raw materials? Will on demand products printed next to the user become reality?

Today we are at the dawn of an evolution in manufacturing that will change the value chain step-by-step. First by integrating digitized product data in cloud based designs and assemblies, followed by a fully digitized manufacturing supply chain; products, at the end of their lifecycle, fully reusable, dematerialized and transformed into new physic parts. Pricing is based on time-of-demand and its impact on the planet’s ecosystems; to be paid in euro’s or carbon credits?"

This is an example of the circular economy as practiced by the Belgian company Melotte and based on Mario Fleurinck’s vision, CEO Melotte and founder of InnoCrowd. 

The combination of digital manufacturing, cradle-to-cradle digital processes and cloud based product management moves after-sales services towards a new paradigm without even mentioning the next wave, 4D printing! 

Do not miss his presentation on 20 June in Frankfurt at the EPP Aftermarket Forum.  Mario will close the conference on a futuristic note... What could the Aftermarket Manufacturing landscape look like in the year 2023.  Looking forward to some interesting discussions on the topic.

1/9/13

How to create sustainable economic growth?

At the beginning of December 2012 Melotte attended several interactive events with focus on shaping the green economic thinking from the base in a creative manner.  
It was a pleasure for Mr Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte NV, to meet keynote speaker Mr. José Manuel Barroso (current President of the European Union) at the Voka Congress 2012, Flanders’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in Brussels. "Time for extra growth" was the topic of the congress emphasizing the significant role of the enterprises.
 
Together with other experts like Mr Koen Dejonckheere (Gimv) and Mr Ignace Van Doorselaere (Van de Velde) Mario Fleurinck represented the company Melotte during the debate about the Power of Growth and Live Voting by the audience.
That same week in GreenVille (Houthalen, Belgium), the monumental main building of the ancient coalmine, a ZERI (°) training took place within the vision of the Bleu Economy. The main objective was to select and analyse 8 concrete business models and implement them rapidly in 2013.
Mr. Gunter Pauli (Founder of ZERI) explains: “ It is mainly a method or way of thinking for shaping an idea into a business that both serves the needs of our society and is able to be competitive due to the use of local resources." 
(°) ZERI is a global network of creative minds seeking solutions to world challenges
It is no coincidence that Mr Pauli chose GreenVille as training location since it is playing a significant role in the roll out of Limburg as an important European Cleantech (*) region where trainings are organised with experts to initiate people into all aspects of CleanTech giving them insight how transition to CleanTech can lead to a sustainable community.
 
(*) Cleantech is a famous abbreviation of “Clean Technologies” which is a collective noun of products, services and processes based on technologies that optimize the use of natural sources and minimize the environmntal impact.


Today Melotte is proud to announce that Mr Dirk Vandereyt (Melotte Outsourcing and R&D Engineer) was one of the trainees who succeeded in becoming a CleanTech Ambassador (CTA) with expertise in explaining and inspiring others the importance of transition of manufacturing as well as consumption patterns.  

"Congratulations, Dirk!"  
 

6/18/12

Factories of the Future - Towards a New Industrial Revolution



From the 19th till the 21st of June next over 160 high profile international speakers from industry, government and research will meet at Industrial Technologies 2012 (Aarhus, Denmark)* to discuss visions for European Research and Industry in 2020. They will reveal the economic and technological impact of industrial technologies with topics including low emission transportation, integrated systems, resource efficiency as opportunity, innovations inspired by nature, improving the environment, energy generation and storage, printing goes 3-D, healthcare and construction.


Amongst the speakers are also some recognized people from Belgian companies such as Umicore, Solvay, Materialise and Melotte. All sessions aim to discuss the drivers, conditions, opportunities and activities in specific industrial areas to strive in global competition.

The session Reducing Time to Market: From Prototype to Production reviews some examples of prototype and pilot facilities that are helping companies to speed the deployment of advanced technologies. A challenge inherent in industrial technologies is the requirement to take a research breakthrough and scale this up to large scale, cost effective mass production.

Mario Fleurinck CEO of Melotte and Founder of InnoCrowd (BE) has been asked to address the EU High Level Group, a selected club of European opinion and policy leaders. Mario will explain how Direct Digital Manufacturing allows creating objects with minimal waste “growing” them layer-by-layer and the impact on our environment by means of an extended Life Cycle Analysis input. He will also pay attention to the leverage on local employment and business organization of the new eco system called InnoCrowd.   

*The “Industrial Technologies 2012” event is supported by the European Commission Directorate for Research and Innovation and takes place during the Danish Presidency of the European Council.


4/23/12

Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte, inspires as KEYNOTE

From the 18th till the 20th of April the Materialise World Conference 2012 took place at Leuven. Experts from all over the world were brought together to experience and discuss the technology and solutions needed to prepare what many are calling the "Industrial Revolution 2.0".

I am pleased to announce that Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte, was one of the Keynote speakers at this conference with 600 participants from over 15 countries.
During his presentation Mario focused on the role of Direct Digital Manufacturing in the area of entrepeneur creativity, sustainability and local anchoring of the manufacturing industry.
Mario is known as an inspiring speaker with a clear message for his audience. In this context he is asked to give a lecture at the upcoming GDF-Suez Management Executives Meeting with 800 participants from 22 countries.


GDF-Suez is one of the largest energy companies in the world and during this meeting they will search for business models with impact on their business strategy. They are eager to understand and support Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) new business models. Mario will give advise directly from the field and will point out how DDM technologies will change GDF-Suez business model in the future.

            
Also This week the 5th world conference on Appreciative Inquiry is held in Ghent (Belgium).

David Cooperrider is the Fairmount Minerals Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University and author of "A positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry". (Appreciative Inquiry - sometimes shortened to "AI" - is primarily an organizational development method which focuses on increasing what an organization does well rather than on eliminating what it does badly. AI focuses on the positive aspects of our lives and leverages them to correct the negative which is the opposite of "Problem-solving". )

Mr Cooperrider has served as an advisor to senior executives in business and societal leadership roles, including projects with five Presidents and Nobel Laureates. He will be one of the keynotes at the World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2012.

From April 25-28 2012 the summit expects 1.250 participants from 35 countries.



Mario Fleurinck will explain how his vision is brought into practice and how significant and rapidly growing results are.


As a keynote speaker Mario Fleurinck presents a breakthrough business case, in the area of Direct Digital Manufacturing. He will nurture the audience, with his vision on business and society change, and how these two should interact. His vision of a blue economy (vs. green) is the baseline, in which social and financial profit must go hand in hand.


3/14/12

Mario Fleurinck, CEO Melotte, Keynote Speaker @ DDMC Berlin

Since Fraunhofer (Germany) knows Mario Fleurinck as a competent user of Additive Manufacturing he was invited to be one of the keynote speakers at the FRAUNHOFER DIRECT DIGITAL MANUFACTURING CONFERENCE (DDMC) 2012.

From March 14-15, 2012 DDMC will bring together researchers, educators and practitioners from around the world and foster an atmosphere conducive to developing new ideas and refining already existing research developments.

Topics of DDMC are:
-       Design, virtual environments and simulation
-       Laser based Additive Manufacturing technologies
-       Micro technologies, printing and deposition
-       Novel materies and compounds
-       Application toward manufacturing
-       Quality methods for Additive Manufacturing
-       Sustainable manufacturing and carbon foot print

Together with Prof. Hans-Jörg Bullinger (Fraunhofer President, Germany), Prof. Frank Piller (RWTH Aachen, Germany) and Frank Wöllecke (BMW), Mario Fleurinck will be one of the Keynote Speakers of the Congress.

Mario’s lecture will be about

“Direct Digital Manufacturing in every day business practice – today’s opportunities and tomorrow’s challenges.”

For further information please visit http://www.ddmc2012.org