12/23/09

Melotte on CANVAS - 29/12 at 10.10 pm

In August Melotte published "Light weight solutions based on DDM Technology" and "The revolutionary e-Texturing in Digital Manufacturing" on this blog.
Today we are proud to present live images of the development, design and manufacturing of the mono-block full titanium lightweight steering wheel of the Belgian "Umicar Inspire" Solar car. Now Melotte Direct Digital Manufacturing is in the picture thanks to a documentary on Belgian television about 14 students' adventure participating in the World Solar Challenge for Solar Cars in Australia.

During the last 6 months a television crew filmed these students as well as their sponsors which are all Belgian high tech companies.
On
http://video.canvas.be/solar-race-australie-afl-1-innovatief-stuur you will see the fragment where the project highlights Melotte's DDM participation.

Melotte's CEO, Mr Mario Fleurinck, and his team take this opportunity to wish all blog readers a MERRY CHRISTMAS and CREATIVE & INSPIRING 2010.

12/9/09

Melotte wins VOKA INNOVATION AWARD 2009

On the 8th of December last, during the successful and crowded Open Innovation Forum, the Voka - Chamber of Commerce Limburg - presented the Voka Innovation Award to Melotte.

Last year Voka started this new tradition of awarding an innovative company in Limburg calling attention to innovative products, services and processes developed in Limburg. On the other hand the organisation wants to inspire trade and industry by good real practice and encourage to innovate efficiently.

A jury of 7 experts analysed the 17 candidates thoroughly based on some well-considered questions: “Is it an innovative organisation?”, “Is the project well defined, surprising and inspiring?”,”Does the project have market potential?”, “Will the project or company support the image intensification of Limburg as innovative and creative region, nationally as well as internationally?”

After an intensive deliberation the jury selected 6 nominees of which the company Melotte received the highest score at the end.

The jury was impressed by Melotte’s international innovation approach of products and processes. Besides conventional production methods the company’s focus is on manufacturing high-precision parts by means of a complete digital process based on Additive Manufacturing* technologies (* using metal powder Melotte builds products through laser technology).

All positive aspects of Additive Manufacturing i.e. freedom of form, precision, micro dimensions, speed and environment together with the international roll out of Melotte’s new business model in promising markets were tasted well by the jury.

It was a great honour for Mario Fleurinck, CEO of Melotte NV, to receive the award (designed by PHL-student Lore Langendries) from Ms. Ingrid Lieten, Vice-Minister-President of the Flemish Government, Flemish Minister for Innovation, Public Investment, Media and Poverty Reduction.


11/4/09

Leading Belgian magazine "Trends" published rewarding article about Melotte

http://www.melotte.be/MELOTTE/EN/COMPANY/NEWS/29092009.htm

With a technology to produce machine parts from powder Melotte shifts the paradigm on industrial traditions of metal manufacturing in Zonhoven (Belgium). So revolutionary that even low-wage countries cannot compete.

In Zonhoven Melotte’s CEO, Mr Mario Fleurinck, points at the laser robot that in no time produces precision machine parts, cardiac valves and other medical implants layer by layer from fine titanium powder, called Layered Manufacturing.

Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) is part of Melotte’s strategic diversification and is considered an innovative complement to the existing high-precision production apparatus. The company works on projects for customers from US, South-Africa, Saudi-Arabia, Malaysia and even China where DDM serves integrally finished products.
The DDM experience of Melotte demonstrates that industrial production flocking to low-wage countries can be considerably reduced by working on an efficient innovation model with interference in design and production methods.
“As digital factory Melotte uses technology which will be very common within fifteen to twenty years.” So the next years Melotte’s CEO wants to go further and build a complete new industrial sector. Surely it is not his intention to produce for the whole world in Zonhoven because this would be contradictory to the vision that materials as well as products need to be transported as little as possible. For that reason subsidiaries will be set up worldwide under Melotte’s flag in order to produce parts close to the end user.

Terry Wohlers from Colorado, an authority in additive or layered manufacturing calls the performance of Melotte impressive. Therefore he invites Mr Fleurinck as guest speaker on the 11th Annual International Wohlers Conference “The Future of Additive Manufacturing” in Frankfurt on December 4 next.


See
http://www.euromold.com/index.php?id=115 for more information.

Those of you who are anxious to learn more about Melotte's DDM there is another possibility at MIDEST - Expo 2009 where you can join Mr Fleurinck's lecture about "Direct Digital Manufacturing as Strategic element in advanced Tooling Solutions at Melotte" on Thursday, 19 November 2009 from 4.00 pm till 5.00 pm, l' Espace Conférences 2 (Stand 6 D 7), Paris Nord Villepinte - France.




10/30/09

Layered Manufacturing Association on Linked

A few months ago we launched our Layered Manufacturing Association on Linked. We're absoluely happy with the number of participants today. The Association aims at stimulating cross exchange on layered manufacturing processes and interaction betwee n players worldwide.

Everyone is welcome, we simply ask an open mind and the right balance between publicity and added value. The group is mixed; industry, academic specialists from all over the world get in contact.

Feel free to join and let's discuss and further develop the excited Additive, Layered Manufacturing and Direct Digital Manufacturing market.

10/12/09

Titanium Light-weight / Thin Walled (0,4 mm) OEM parts


Project Purpose: For a leading OEM active in the textile industry we've run a project based on "Industrialisation and mass customized production" of fingers used in yarn processing industries. The part flips, at maximum speed, 3000 times/minute over 180°. In this project a combination of lightweight product re-engineering and “mass” customization is made. The contact angle and the finger quantity change depending on the yarn characteristics. The re-engineered part is hybrid, customized and light-weight.

This project shows the advantages of Thin Walled products in highly dynamic operational environments. The fact that the contact angle has become variable offer the customer the possibility to add value in the process and to integrate with the end-user.

Project Features:

- 3D modeling and business process engineering of thin walled tubes
- Automated contact angle calculation (OEM) and mechanical property analysis (Conventional vs DDM Manufactured)
- FEA analysis
- Complete Part production and assembly from Solid to Model (Direct Manufacturing, coating & high-end component finishing)
- Industrialisation R&D and process definition, 1400 parts per year.

9/29/09

Aerosol Flame Reactor Nozzle Hybrid parts in Inconel 718, 2.4668

Market Release: Industrialisation and serial production of Nozzles used in the production of submicron un- agglomerated solid crystalline particles in an aerosol flame reactor by a spray pyrolysis method. Melotte’s engineering capabilities and experience in Inconel 718 conventional machining in combination with the Near-To-Net-Shape DDM methods are key in the product re-engineering of these process critical parts. The re-engineered part is hybrid and versatile. It took us about 4 months to run the entire project. We've used following features:
- 3D modeling and reverse engineering of complex features via optical scanning (free forms) and mechanical property analysis (Conventional versus Layered Manufactured)
- Thermodynamic analysis on nozzle outlet. (influence thermal expansion on booster properties)
- Complete Part production and assembly from Solid to Model (Direct Manufacturing & high-end component finishing)
- Industrialisation R&D and process definition, 200 parts/year
We thank our customer for giving us the ability to share this project with our Blogreaders! Thanks Phil!

8/28/09

Lightweight Solutions based on DDM Technology

Market Release: The economical climate has positive effects on the way people look at our developments, in the past few weeks we’ve run multiple projects based on weight-saving programs. Although most of them are “not for publication” we’re proud to highlight a project for the next generation automotive industry, the one focusing on Solar cars…. Melotte supports the Belgian Solar team since many years, at this year’s edition we’ve done two important projects. The first one is another weight saving project on magnetic in-wheel motor, this is a pure multitask milling project, the second one is full DDM project and contributes substantially on this year’s challenge to minimize excess material.

In the past the team used a conventional steering wheel made out of aluminum, the raw material (4,5 Kg) was milled down to a basic geometry. Given the tight space in Solar car’s cockpit the conventional steering wheel did not feel comfortable. Driving the car down-under in extreme climate conditions pushed the engineers to develop a mono-block full titanium light-weight steering wheel. Based on FEA analysis’s we’ve come to the conclusion that we could hollow-out the part and take the walls down to 0,8 mm. All this results in a huge weight saving, above we’ve been able to reduce Buy-To-Fly ratio’s from 4,5 Kg (conventional milled) to 0,3 Kg, DDM based on layer manufacturing. Another good example of Carbon Footprint optimization and more precise a raw material saving of about 90%. Finally we’ve realized a nice piece of engineering and we wish the Solar Team all the best during The World Solar Challenge in Australia!

8/14/09

E-Texturing is a revolution in digital manufacturing


Market Release: Since a few months we’re actively developing e-texturing features on DDM parts. Mainly we add texture (soft gripping, leather texturing, topographical features) on 3D solids and produce these in a Direct Digital way. Instead of having advanced post-processing treatments such as milling/EDM, we simply add it on the surface of the digital model (STL based). Tests have been made on thin walled parts, mould inserts and even on some medical implants. All of them being ready for market release as from now!

e-Texture is one of the latest software solutions of Materialise. The software enables to apply a 3D Texture on a 3D digital model. The uniqueness of e-Texture is that the texture will thus be applied during printing and not after printing, resulting in time and cost savings. Lieve Boeykens, Sales Manager at Materialise says: “In house we can experiment enough with printing plastics, however having no own metal machine, we have to rely on our good relations with Melotte.” Being both partner of the Belgium Solar Team (
http://www.solarteam.be/ ), a project was easily defined to print the first model in titanium with a leather texture immediately applied during printing. The pictures shows the first result coming from Melotte’s DDM set-up. The part is thin walled (0,8 mm) and freeform, cost savings are important and most of all, we respect extremely short delivery times and can easily confirm the accuracy by showing the optical comparison. Another good example of what DDM can bring to you!

6/19/09

Melotte@ a glance

Digital Factory movie: For overseas customers it’s not easy to get a good view on our Direct Digital Manufacturing Set-up. Therefore we’ve create a movie that shows all the aspects of our vertically integrated Direct Digital Manufacturing shop. The video shows the digital chain, from 3D file over powder to finished high precision part. This movie was shown at the Rapid Manufacturing General Assembly, held last month in Brussels. Now it’s more obvious for RM users to decide on the digital chain. You can find the movie on www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOwBZRLlwl4

Last month the Belgian commercial Television channel VTM reported on our Digital Factory as well. This has been a big success, we’ve become a curiosum in Belgium’s technology garden… Please feel free and have a look at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWX4VcE81Ck

We’re happy to announce the release of our new Inconell 600 grade material, this material is now available for DDM. Early august we’ll release other materials.

5/15/09

Melotte Wins ITM Award 2009 in the Category “Best Practice in Manufacturing”

Melotte is the proud winner of the ITM Award 2009 for Overall Best Performer in the Category “Best Practices In Manufacturing” in Belgium. The award was presented by Belgium’s Minister of Economy, Vincent Van Quickenborne, at the Price Giving Ceremony show on Thursday 14th May 2009 in Brussels. The whole management team was present to celebrate this victory together with me. This prize corroborates Melotte’s position as a technology leader in both the local & international markets.

I was proud to accept the award on behalf of Melotte, and of all the fantastic people that make our organization what it is today. I have uploaded pictures to our Weblog “The World Of Layered Manufacturing”, and here are also a few from the event. Unfortunately, attending this event meant that I had to miss my Key-note Speaking engagement at the Rapid Implant Manufacturing Forum in Schaumburg, Illinois.

During the price giving ceremony, ITM’s Advisory Board Chairman Mr. Prof. Marc Van Overmeire, Chief Research Officer@vinçotte and Professor at the VUB stressed on the entrepreneurship, technological front-end innovations and internationalization in Melotte’s Magnesium Moulding Project. Melotte is a pioneer in Direct Digital Manufacturing and combines Ecology and Economy in a smart and profitable way.

Being in charge of this magnificent company, Melotte, is exciting and rewarding! We’ll continue developing advanced technologies in close cooperation with our knowledge partners; academic and governmental Research Institutes, customers, OEM’s and count on the support of our Shareholder.

Do not hesitate to contact us in case you would like to receive more information about our Direct Digital Manufacturing Solutions.

4/9/09

TCT magazine & JOBAT reports on Melotte

The Rapid Manufacturing Market is growing rapidly, TCT Magazine is the leading media partner for the RM industry. On their blog, www.tctmagazine.com/x/blog.html, TCT reports on Melotte's developments in Direct Digital Manufacturing and the impact of this technology on the environment.

We quote Mr. Duncan Woods, " I'm often struck by the disruptive nature of RM and how it completely changes the way people go about their daily tasks, we all know that designing for RM has a complete set of new rules, but imagine the change in thinking for a surgeon if within 36 hours of having a CT scan the patient in question can be the recipient of bespoke, ready to use, titanium heart valves. Sounds good doesn't it? Well Melotte have done this and plenty more besides with their Selective Laser Melting, Direct Metal Deposition and Electron Beam Melting technologies.Melotte have a an interesting take on things. Yes they expound the business case for RM, reducing time-to-market, reducing cost and improving efficiency but they also take this to a natural conclusion, and one that is gaining more and more momentum in this sector as we move forward. The conclusion is that RM is also good for the environment with less material use, less energy used and less waste."
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Also JOBAT, a leading Belgian magazine reported on Melotte's DDM activities. In the article JOBAT focussed on the HR topics related to the development of MElotte's DDM set-up and the way our team worked together during these challening times. Many times we went form zero-to-hero and back! We still commit to transparancy and mutual respect and this has been te trigger for JOBAT to report on our developments.

During his lecture at the Rapid Prototyping & Product Design Conference, held last week in Kortrijk Melotte's CEO explained the huge impact of RM on the Business Resources Efficiency & Waste metrics and the related economics. Though we agree that we're still far away from a total take-over of Conventional Processes by DDM the economical crisis boosts the development. Lost wax processes are currenthly being replaced by DDM methods.

Next week multiple engineering sessions are planned and engineers are being transformed into DDM Design Specialists. We really appriciate the efforts made by the engineers and are convinced about the positive outcome.

During the lecture a young and brilliant believer, Mr. Nils Ferlin (Lector Industrial Design at the HOWEST), challenged the impact of CO2 on Global Warming. We agree that CO2 is often used as a buzzword and we believe that pollution, energy saving or raw material savings could have been a better and more appropriate term in our marketing. Nils will visit Melotte in the next few weeks and discuss the topic with Melotte's Environmental Advisory Board. Conclusions will be taken into consideration and our marketing campaign will be adapted upon. We thank Mr. Ferlin for his positive and constructive contribution and look forward to the meeting.




3/18/09

Upcoming DDM events!

Though Melotte’s activities on DDM are known in the market we believe that the paradigm shift only can be reached by bringing the message to more interested DDM believers. Therefore we would like to take the opportunity to list a few of the upcoming DDM events.

(1), Rapid Prototyping Event 2009: Design & Prototyping" on April the 2nd 2009 at the Industrial Design Center in Kortrijk (Belgium). Melotte’s CEO will present some practical cases in DDM in combination with Optical Scanning, Micro Tomography and advanced component finishing technologies. See practical information at
www.protolab.be

(2), RIMF’s Advisory Board is pleased to inform you that Melotte’s abstract, Direct Digital Manufacturing@Melotte, Scan based implant modeling technologies in a digital vertically integrated manufacturing environment, has been reviewed favorably and selected by the advisors to be presented at the Rapid Implant Manufacturing Forum (RIMF) held alongside SME’s Rapid Conference & Tradeshow on May 13, 2009 in Schaumburg, Illinois USA. Melotte’s CEO will present the developments on Direct Digital Implant Manufacturing. Info at
www.sme.org/rapid

(3) DDM technology transfer sessions @ Melotte, almost 80 Melotte customers have participated at DDM sessions. During this interactive session Melotte presents his DDM offer and highlights on the importance of DDM in order to reduce Global Warming. Next to the overall business outline we concentrate on transferring our knowledge on DDM Product development to the audience. So far we did concentrate on our loyal customers. As from June we’re opening the sessions for individual DDM believers. These sessions will be organized in cooperation with the Flanders Innovation Council. As we’re in varies markets we will try to create homogeneous groups. Sessions will concentrate on Medical, Dental & Macro facial Surgery , Tooling Solutions, Hybrid & lightweight Solutions, Art & Jeweler and one session dedicated to optical scanning and reverse engineering. Feel free to join these sessions and let us know your interest by sending a mail to
info@melotte.be

Best in Class Award: at the end of each session we will choose the “Best in Class”! The winner will have the possibility to have a DDM design product produced by Melotte DDM team!

3/10/09

Aluminum Rapid Manufacturing combined with Optical Scanning proves the DDM concept

Market Release: Although many customers are taking measures to overcome the current recession we’re still very active in developing front-end prototyping solutions. Customers are looking for savings and they decide to switch prototyping from conventional CAD/CAM oriented Milling programs towards DDM. We’re currently running substantial numbers of Aluminum DDM prototyping projects. In many cases the DDM part price does not exceed the programming cost for conventional prototyping. Some time ago we’ve decided to add optical scanning to our portfolio. Today we’re proud to announce the full integration of DDM with optical scanning (compare & dimensional checks) and Microtomography for mechanical property analysis. paris hilton


The picture above shows a picture of our optical scanning while interpreting a precise Rapid manufactured OEM Aluminum part. Part tolerances, after robot enhanced 5-axis milling, of +/- 5µm are optically scanned and compared in an automated way. Compared to the conventional prototyping costs have been reduced with about 26% and the production lead-time has dropped by over 80%.

2/5/09

Press Conference Melotte Direct Digital Manufacturing

Press Conference Direct Digital Manufacturing@Melotte:

Melotte today organized a press conference at its headquarters to brief Belgian journalists on its pioneering role in the direct digital manufacturing of medical implants. Today, Melotte is the only company in the world capable of supplying the medical sector worldwide with ready-to-use implants in titanium, only 36 hours after providing a CT scan. E.g. data of a person in South-Africa undergoing heart surgery are sent via a CT scan from the local hospital to Zonhoven - only 36 hours later the new heart valves arrive at the local hospital. CEO Mario Fleurinck took the occasion to demonstrate Melotte’s unique competences in layered manufacturing, by commenting to the much interested press audience on the full process, from the online data delivery to modeling the patient’s unique implant in titanium, and to the digital production and final shipment of the implant to customers worldwide. The press conference (organized in collaboration with Voka Limburg, the local chamber of commerce) was a unique opportunity to show Melotte’s unique competences in the digital manufacturing of a.o. dental implants, skull plates or heart valves. Moreover, Melotte provided a glimpse of future applications that will undoubtedly change the known and current manufacturing technologies.

1/9/09

Blogcounter hits the Sky.

Marketing information:Since we've launched our Blog "The World of Layered Manufacturing", only a few months ago we've succeeded in developping business all over the globe. Without major marketing expenses we've been able to generate numberous sales leads and pushed the market of RM in metals. Below you can find the blogcounter log by geographical region. Only the latest 50 hits are displayed!

Do not hesitate to contact us via http://www.melotte.be/


The proof of the pudding.....

Even at 15°C below zero MElotte's DDM stays HOT!

We would like to wish you all the best for 2009! Keep up the good work and thanks for the great support! Since the Blog has been put live about 840 individual followers have shown interest in our developments!

Product & Process information: Our Direct Digital Manufacturing Department has been very active during the Christmas period. Early December we've installed the new laserspot and we're very excited with the results. The part accuracy and surface finish have improved without compromising on building speed. The wise combination of Layered Manufacturing and Advanced Finishing technologies have proved the concept.

For a customer in the medical market we produce large batches of DDM Titanium parts, grade 5, (picture left). In the past these were produced by lost-wax methods and advanced 5-axis milling. Today the free-form is made by DDM and we only finish the high precision connectors. Melotte agreed on a delivery time of 3 working days. Product prices have dropped by 65%.

The customer decided to review its complete supply chain and to transfer as many product as possible to DDM. The Product engineering department visits Melotte next week in order to organise a smooth transfer.
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We thank the customer for this fantastick opportunity!