The Innovation team plays an important role at AMEXCI. From providing answers to your initial questions related to Additive Manufacturing, to developing long-term projects, our innovation team supports you from the very beginning of your AM journey until its end. Following the increasing need of collaboration on more and more various AM topics, we decided to expand the team to better support you in your adoption of AM. 

Therefore, in this article, we would like to take a deeper look at our innovation team and provide you with a chance to meet them virtually through an interview we have conducted with them.  

Innovation at AMEXCI: a compass in your Additive Manufacturing journey

What defines us at AMEXCI is that we can support you all along your AM journey, from developing a feasible business case to the final production of the component. And our innovation team is the guide on this journey. Our previous customers surely already met the team either during a workshop, or through a project development. However, for those who haven’t met them – yet – we would like to give you a deeper insight on how the innovation team is structured and what its role at AMEXCI is – and for our already existing customers, we would like you to get to know the team even better.  

The Innovation team supports any of our customers in the initial stages of their projects, such as sharing AM knowledge through trainings and tailored workshops, identifying the most promising cases for Additive Manufacturing, updating on the market trends, or providing advice when it comes to product development. It could either be delivering a fast answer to your question, or assisting during more complex short- or long-term projects. Thanks to a combined 19-year experience on various AM materials and technologies, they try to support our customers in any of their challenges and connect them with the relevant actors within AMEXCI – or within the AM market if needed. 

In other words, you could consider the innovation team as a bridge connecting you with the whole AM world within AMEXCI and further.   

 

Get to know our Innovation team:

Benjamin Delignon, Head of Innovation at AMEXCI:

I started exploring AM during my university years and worked in this field ever since. I mainly worked with aerospace and defence markets in France, initially more on the technical side – qualification projects for aerospace components, and after a while with commercial discussions, and producing all the technical documents and files. I was managing the manufacturing engineering department before I moved to Karlskoga and joined AMEXCI. Since a year and a half, I have been working with different type of components, applications, markets, industries, maturity levels.  

Akshatha Dandayanda, Innovation Manager at AMEXCI:

I was working as a Design Engineer at General Motors when I realized I cannot be a good one if I don’t have a proper understanding of the manufacturing processes. I decided then to pursue my Master’s in manufacturing, and that was when I got introduced to Additive Manufacturing. I started my AM career at Wipro3D, a key player of AM in India. We were a small team and as we had to take care of everything related to a customer’s project, the entire AM value chain became very clear to me. I understood the importance of the ecosystem required to make AM win. So you need more than a printer to be an AM company, like good powder, good metallurgists, material testing lab, post-processing department and more. It is not like AM will replace any other technology, but AM is going to be an integral part of the process flow, going forward. I continued with different projects, such as in healthcare, automotive, space, and I understood what material is preferred by which industry, what the reason behind it is, which one has a more freedom of design, where are the production volumes really high or low. After Wipro, I worked for GE before coming to AMEXCI, on the same role of training and consulting, which I really enjoyed. What I find here nice is that the market is very different, and open to explore new technologies and processes. 

Maxime Legrand, Innovation Manager at AMEXCI:

I first heard about AM in 2015, when the FDM printers became widespread. I was reluctant to believe that anything for industrial use could be manufactured with them. However, at the University where I was studying to become a biomedical engineer, I found out that they were using metal printers since 2009 to manufacture medical implants. I immediately changed my perspective on the possibilities of Additive Manufacturing and realized I wanted to be a part of it and explore this technology even more. I continued with an internship at a start-up company owned by Materialise and then at a smaller company focusing mostly on FDM printers, where I expanded my knowledge in AM. After that I joined Sirris, a research centre, working for the Belgian technology industry. There were a lot of companies that we were supporting to develop new products – to innovate basically. I continued to work in polymer AM, but with a focus on different technologies, mostly SLS (selective laser sintering), but also SLA (stereolithography) and DLP (digital light processing). Similar to what we are doing at AMEXCI, we were working on different research projects, supporting different companies with Additive Manufacturing. 

What are the strengths of having a multicultural team?

Benjamin: “Having a team, where we all come from different industries, countries and AM backgrounds, is really valuable, because it offers us the possibilities to look at situations or questions from particular angles. Also, the way we do things leads to different approaches and enabling us to complement each other. This is particularly useful to support customers evolving in broad range of industries.”

Akshatha: : “When you have this cultural mix, you become more sensitive to the different cultures of our customers who are based all other the world. Also, when you have a multicultural team, you develop an understanding of how to handle different groups that you work with, making them more engaged and interested in the discussions that are happening during a workshop. However, we are not only diverse in a cultural sense, but we also have different professional backgrounds. For example, Maxime has a very rich experience of printing in polymers, while I am more focused on metal printing.” 

Maxime: “Having a multicultural team means that you are more open-minded, and that is what brought me to AMEXCI in the first place. I feel that there is much more exchange going on here – it is more positive. What is nice about it is that we can interact with different people coming from different backgrounds and learn about each other, teach each other about our traditions, cultures. Moreover, from a professional standpoint, we complement each other when it comes to bringing different ideas and perspectives to the table.”

What are some of the challenges and benefits of working with Innovation at AMEXCI?

Benjamin: “Every day is different – always working with different components, materials, technologies, industries, questions. For example, in one hour you can talk about an aerospace component, the next one about parts for gardening equipment and in the next focus on bearings. So even before lunch you have been involved in so many different topics and different ways of working, it is highly valuable. I believe that challenges turn into opportunities, as we always learn more and more things – maybe even more in the relatively new Additive Manufacturing field. Besides, another opportunity of working within the innovation team at AMEXCI is working in collaborative projects, where several companies join forces to tackle one common AM challenge and efficiently solve it together.”

Akshatha: “Many of our customers are deeply involved in the adoption of Additive Manufacturing and know what they want from us. And that makes it easier for us to design and plan the content that we have to present to them. On the other hand, working with new AM adopters is always the start of a new journey where new innovative ideas come to life. Moreover, at AMEXCI we have the ecosystem, including the printers, material laboratory, post-processing systems among other advantages, which allow us to provide all the support our customers need. I don’t see anything as a challenge right now, maybe later (laughing)”

Maxime: “One challenge for me is linked to the covid-19 situation that is still ongoing – hopefully for not so long now. Because of that, all trainings and workshops taking place at AMEXCI are mostly online rather than face to face, making us miss on the interaction that we would have with our customers otherwise. That is why, we had to think about different online tools, which would give us the possibility to interact with them more. Even if we managed to find ways to create that interaction online, I am sure there are more improvements to be made.”

What was your most memorable experience when working with Additive Manufacturing?

Benjamin: ”When I was working in France in the aerospace industry, I saw how far you can go in Additive Manufacturing. How many departments are impacted by it: from designers to procurement, quality assurance, laboratories. The whole chain is concerned. Having people who have to learn about AM specificities, so they can follow the right steps and procedures to participate in the production of a finalized component. The qualification of parts can take years because so many sub-topics are dug out and also need to be solved before a component is qualified. AM being often considered as a strategic topic, many levels want to be part of the project –from top management, middle management, to operational – the engagement is complete. For example, you can end for one project with around 200 people involved from customer and suppliers’ sides. That was something that really stood out for me in this AM world.”

Akshatha: “During my first AM job, I experienced what an impact Additive Manufacturing can have on both our industry, society, and the future. I was relatively new at this company, being part of a small team that was working with AM. There, we received a project, where we had to design and manufacture an antenna component for a satellite that was going to be launched. All of us we were new to the technology and machines, and what struck me was the design of the component. It was really fabulous. The project itself imposed several challenges, however after three days and three nights of printing, the build job was ready. I remember I was there all the time at the office during the print, sleeping and eating there. After the printing was completed, the component went through rigorous testing, and, right now, it is orbiting together with the satellite somewhere in space. That was an experience I will never forget.” 

Maxime: “I get amazed by Additive Manufacturing every day and that is the reason I continue working with it, as there is something new to learn and experience. AM is a production method that can solve difficult challenges and it can be applied in so many industries. For example, in the morning we can work with a component for the medical industry, and in the evening, we shift our focus on components for the space industry. This is something that really impresses me every day.” 

Are you curious to work with our team?

Contact Innovation team here.

Develop your product with them here.

Participate in Innovation workshops and trainings related to AM here.