Industry Thought Leaders Discuss “Additive Manufacturing’s Next Inflection Point”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — December 17, 2013 — Optomec announced today that the company recently participated in a 3D Printing Conference hosted by FBR & Co in New York City. The conference brought together institutional investors and thought leaders in additive manufacturing, including major equipment and technology developers, service centers and users, and academics, for an informative and productive day of panels and one-on-one meetings.

Optomec president and CEO, Dave Ramahi, participated in a panel discussion on the topic of “Additive Manufacturing’s Next Inflection Point.” Other panel participants included chief executives from Stratasys, ExOne, and Mcor Technologies.

Mr. Ramahi’s discussion focused on the Company’s philosophy that “Additive Manufacturing means Adding Value by Adding Any Material to Anything,” whereas 3D Printing is usually assumed only to mean building complete structures in 3D. This core philosophy difference led to the evolution of unique 3D printing solutions that are capable of printing Structural Metals, Conductive Metals and a wide array of other functional materials onto existing structures - as well as for building full parts. This creates a landscape where Additive Manufacturing can co-exist with traditional manufacturing techniques, by offering an ability to enhance existing products.

For example, Optomec solutions are used to print high performance electronics and sensors onto low cost 3D plastic structures produced by conventional injection molding, thereby increasing their utility and value. Mr. Ramahi went on to say market demand is high for such capabilities as evidenced by the Company’s recent delivery of a high volume production system to print 3D antennas for Smartphones. Optomec is currently engaged with more than a dozen major mobile device manufacturers to implement such capabilities.

In a similar way, use of Optomec 3D Printers for metals components have been combined with subtractive machining methods to take advantage of what each process does best. For example, the time to build a complex stainless steel housing was reduced from 52 weeks (if cast) to 3 weeks by first machining the base of the housing and then building up deep-pocketed vertical details using an Optomec 3D Printer. Such capabilities of printing high performance materials in 3D onto existing structures are unique to Optomec. Click here for more information on Optomec.

Optomec is a privately-held, rapidly growing supplier of Additive Manufacturing systems. Optomec’s patented Aerosol Jet Systems for printed electronics and LENS 3D Printers for metal components are used by industry to reduce product cost and improve performance. Together, these unique printing solutions work with the broadest spectrum of functional materials, ranging from electronic inks to structural metals and even biological matter. Optomec has more than 150 marquee customers around the world, targeting production applications in the Electronics, Energy, Life Sciences and Aerospace industries.

Aerosol Jet is a registered trademark of Optomec, Inc.
LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping) is a registered trademark of Sandia National Laboratories

Optomec
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