CECIMO highlights key takeaways from its recent AM webinar
July 3, 2020
CECIMO, the European Association of Machine Tool Industries and Related Manufacturing Technologies, reports that the Additive Manufacturing sector is “ready to close the gaps in the European Industrial value chain and to deliver a wide range of benefits for Europe.” This is the main takeaway highlighted during its webinar on ‘Additive Manufacturing: An opportunity to fill the gaps in traditional supply chains’, which took place yesterday, July 2, at 11:00 AM CET, and attracted more than 200 participants.
CECIMO explained that the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has put the whole AM sector under the spotlight, demonstrating that the industry is uniquely positioned to support medical supply chain and quickly produce personal protective and medical equipment. The AM sector makes a different supply chain possible, enabling industries to adapt to disruption quickly and efficiently. Therefore, CECIMO believes that it is important to create the right regulatory framework and industrial ecosystem to allow companies to invest in innovative technologies such as AM.
Stewart Lane, chairman of CECIMO’s Additive Manufacturing Committee, opened the debate during the webinar by highlighting the importance of AM solutions, especially during the lockdown period. He remarked that an “open dialogue and close collaboration between policymakers and industry would be necessary to enable the full potential of the AM sector for industrial supply chain.”
The webinar featured further key speakers including Lorena Ionita, European Commission; Fabio Annunziata, HP Inc; Bernhard Müller, Fraunhofer Additive Manufacturing Alliance; and Vincent Wegener, Ramlab, all of whom addressed the recent supply chain disruption, stressing the importance of the AM sector’s contribution to building a more competitive industry in Europe.
CECIMO highlighted the following as the most important conclusions reached during the webinar:
- Resilient industrial value chains are essential for a fast EU recovery
- It is imperative to have public financial support for those companies that wish to implement changes in their supply chain by investing in the deployment of new solutions
- Coordination among EU member states on regulatory requirements is fundamental to speed up the response of the industry in case of the second wave of the pandemic
- Localisation of production is essential and must be available when needed to avoid the disruption of a globalised supply chain
- The use of Additive Manufacturing can help reduce production time and costs in the industrial supply chain.
