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APWORKS located at the Airbus headquarters close to Munich was Additive Industries’ first customer and has extensively tested the MetalFAB1 Beta system since its installation in March 2016. The partners have jointly decided to now move to the next phase of industrial additive manufacturing: certification and series production. APWORKS, a 100% subsidiary of Premium AEROTEC and part of Airbus, main focus in Taufkirchen is on development and production of complex and advanced applications for metal additive manufacturing in non-regulated industries such as automotive, robotics or tooling, as well as new material and software development. The collaboration on series production of certified applications for the aerospace industry will be done closer to actual production at the new Additive Industries Process & Application Development Center on the aerospace campus in Filton, close to Bristol.
We believe metal additive manufacturing will continue to evolve into a mature fabrication technology and prove to be able to compete with conventional processes like casting, machining and powder metallurgy. In the next years we expect this market to continuously and rapidly grow and especially in the aerospace industry, new airplanes and aeroengines will contain a substantial number of parts that are additively manufactured.
Joachim Zettler, CEO, APWORKS
His colleague, Andreas Nick (CTO) added: “In the UK, our colleagues headed by our Chief Product Officer Jonathan Meyer will work closely with the Additive Industries Process & Application Development team lead by Dr. Mark Beard, their Global Director for Process & Application Development on further qualification and certification of aerospace parts in nickel based alloys like Inconel 718.”
We are proud to continue our journey from prototyping to series production with APWORKS, our first customer and one of the frontrunners in our industry.
Daan Kersten, CEO, Additive Industries