The 4th RM platform meeting on April 16th was a great success!
It was organised perfectly by Prodintec, and took place together with a Custom-Fit and Spanish platform meeting on April 15th. As much as [180??] peoples attended from 14 countries with 76% from industry, showing that RM is really getting increasing interest!

The European Commission was represented by Mr Tokamanis, head DG, and was impressed also, helping to continue the support through FP7. The four successfully passed FP7 proposals of the 1st RM call were presented, together with all kind of relevant info about RM in Europe and the platform itself. There was also a networking workshop in which all peoples where discussing in small groups on new RM applications in 7 market segments.

All presentations and workshop results can be downloaded here. Each workshop RM application defined a lead partner and they can be contacted to follow up these initiatives. So the continuation of this workshop results is up to the pro-active attitude of stakeholders and not of the platform management.

The next RM platform meeting will take place on Tuesday September 16th in Slovenia, together with the RM related conference ICAT 2008 (www.rapiman.net), so mark your agenda!

The TCT has added a new regular column about the activities of the RM Platform. 

This column can be read here, turn to page 8/9 (click the bottom corners of the pages just a you would with a paper edition)

COMPOLIGHT

Develop new rapid manufacturing methods and solutions to improve the design of complex lightweight parts with internal channels or porous structures

STEPUP

Develop new systems, i.e. materials design and development, through the mechano-chemical modification, based on the high energy ball milling technology in polymers, for RM applications.

DirectSpare

Deliver spare parts on-demand in large industries using RM techniques, so reducing the need for large store houses, wasted spare parts and large inventories

IMPALA

Develop a rapid manufacturing process using a laser-based process to produce customized small and medium volume parts from powders.