Aerospace, Manufacturing Firms Join to Form Research Center
Boeing, EOS, Evonik, MCP HEK to locate DMR center at University of
Paderborn, Germany
 PADERBORN, Germany,
July 9, 2008 - Boeing, EOS Electro Optical Systems, Evonik Industries and
MCP HEK Tooling have joined with the University of Paderborn to form the
Direct Manufacturing Research Center (DMRC).
 An
agreement was signed today by representatives of the companies and the
university, to further the development of direct manufacturing processes and
systems, i.e. the automatic, layered fabrication of component parts on the
basis of a computer model. This cooperation builds on the expertise of the
industrial partners ranging from aerospace, material production and
equipment manufacturing and on the research capabilities of the University
of Paderborn. The DMRC is scheduled to open in fall 2008.
“Direct manufacturing offers the potential of significantly reducing
parts production costs, as well as enhancing the ability to fabricate more
complex and more functional component parts,” said Jeff DeGrange, chairman
of the board of the DMRC consortium and Senior Manager of Direct Digital
Manufacturing at Boeing Phantom Works, Boeing’s advanced research and
development organization.
The DMRC will be located at the University of Paderborn and builds on the
University’s competencies in mechanical engineering (i.e. mechanics,
lightweight construction, particle technology, polymer technology,
mechatronics) and in chemistry (polymer materials, interface processes) as
well as computer sciences. “We are very pleased to be part of this
consortium. It will provide our students, faculties and staff members with
an opportunity to learn about the newest generation of direct manufacturing
technology and to contribute our competencies in this field,” said Professor
Dr. Nikolaus Risch, president of the University of Paderborn.
“The DMRC aims to become a leading research center for Direct
Manufacturing. This technology provides the opportunity of creating
high-value jobs for qualified employees. The strong medium-sized businesses
in North Rhine-Westphalia and especially in Ostwestfalen-Lippe can benefit
from this – in mechanical and medical engineering as well as in the
aerospace and automotive industry,” said Professor Dr. Andreas Pinkwart,
minister for innovation of North Rhine-Westphalia.
As opposed to common milling technologies, direct manufacturing
technology automatically builds up parts in layers, e.g. with a laser, based
on a computer-aided design (CAD) data set. While direct manufacturing
technologies are already being used to develop prototypes, only limited
cases of the production of small series of complex parts can be found.
Preconditions for a more widespread use are technical solutions regarding
quality and consistency of the production process, industrial standards,
automation and production speed.
The industrial partners will contribute their core competencies to the
research cooperation to approach these challenges in a joint effort: Boeing
defines production process and system requirements from an aerospace
standpoint. Evonik Industries produces polymer-based standard materials as
well as material solutions tailored for direct manufacturing. EOS and MCP
HEK Tooling will provide their expertise in the development of laser sinter
and laser melting systems for metals and polyamides.
The four founding companies will invest into the DMRC a total of 2
million Euros over the contract period of 5 years which is equivalent to an
annual contribution of 100,000 Euros per company. Additionally, the
University of Paderborn will contribute 600,000 Euros. The DMRC explicitly
invites new industry partners to join the DMRC to be able to continuously
expand its research portfolio.
The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia announced today that it will
invest a 1.4 million Euros to improve the University of Paderborn’s research
infrastructure for direct manufacturing. The funds will be used for the
acquisition of equipment for the DMRC, thus establishing the basis for
projects in this research area. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia also
will co-invest up to 3.4 million Euros for DMRC research projects over the
next five years should the industrial partners additionally contribute the
same amount of funds. The partners expect the total funding of the DMRC to
reach approximately 11 million Euros over the next five years.
Research at the DMRC will be led by University of Paderborn professors
and carried out by its technical staff and students. Seconded staff members
from industry also will contribute and partly work on joint projects at the
DMRC. Initial research will focus on improvement of the processes for laser
sintering/melting technology for metal and plastic powder, and industry
requirements for materials, training, and standards development.
About Boeing
Boeing is the world’s leading aerospace company and the largest
manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. Phantom
Works conducts its own R&D and also works with top government, private and
university research centers throughout the world to find the most innovative
and affordable technology solutions for aerospace applications.
For more information, please visit
www.boeing.com.
About EOS
EOS was founded in 1989 and is today the world-leading manufacturer of
laser-sintering systems. Laser-sintering is the key technology for
e-Manufacturing, the fast, flexible and cost-effective production of
products, patterns or tools. The technology manufactures parts for every
phase of the product life cycle, directly from electronic data.
Laser-sintering accelerates product development and optimizes production
processes. EOS completed its business year 2006/2007 with revenues of 59.7
million Euro which is an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous
year. The company employs more than 250 people worldwide, more than 200 of
them at its headquarters in Krailling near Munich, Germany.
For more information, please visit
www.eos.info.
About Evonik Industries
Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group from Germany which
operates in three business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik
is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation
from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private
residential real estate companies in Germany. Our strengths are creativity,
specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability. Evonik is active
in over 100 countries around the world. In its fiscal year 2007 about 43,000
employees generated sales of about €14.4 billion and an operating profit (EBIT)
of more than €1.3 billion.
For more information, please visit
www.evonik.de.
About MCP HEK Tooling
MCP HEK Tooling has been a supplier to the aircraft and automotive
industries for more than 50 years. Universities, research and training
establishments, polytechnical schools and colleges in 16 countries in Europe
alongside, USA, Singapore, India, Australia and Korea are using our process
as an integral step in teaching Rapid Prototyping and manufacturing
technology. For the last 20 years, since the introduction of generative
rapid prototyping (RP) technology, MCP HEK Tooling has worked together with
all suppliers of rapid prototyping (RP) and rapid manufacturing (RM)
technologies. Since the introduction of RP, MCP HEK has achieved a leading
position as a supplier of systems for the on-going processing and production
of multiples from RP and RM models. MCP HEK Tooling has 60 employees in
factories in Lubeck, Borchen/Paderborn/Germany and Stone/England with a
turnover of 20 Million Euros in 2007.
For more information, please visit
www.mcp-group.de.
About University of Paderborn
The University of Paderborn is a young (founded 1972), dynamic university
with a profile primarily focusing on interdisciplinary cooperation across
scientific disciplines and faculties. That has led to the development of a
number of core competencies in the technical and scientific domain such as
intelligent technical systems, mechatronics, optoelectronics, lightweight
construction and polymer materials. Special focus is also put on a strong
interconnection of internationally recognized basic research with
application-oriented research.
For more information, please visit
www.uni-paderborn.de/ www.dmrc.de.
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