Renishaw to Provide AM Expertise to CECIMO

Renishaw is contributing additive manufacturing (AM) specialist knowledge to European machine tool trade association CECIMO. The trade body represents national associations of machine tool builders across 15 European countries. Following the appointment of senior manager, Stewart Lane, to the CECIMO board in 2015, Renishaw has contributed and shared its specialist AM knowledge and expertise as well as attended events to support the trade body.

Lane was appointed to the board of the UK’s Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA) and CECIMO in 2015. As part of this role, Lane represents UK industry’s interests at European level. Lane has attended seminars addressing the challenges in the AM industry to help form European industrial policy. Further to this, Lane has attended EU parliament’s debating sessions to help discuss and form industrial policy and strategy.

Renishaw has also contributed to CECIMO’s digitalization campaign, which promotes the opportunities, benefits and challenges of digitalization and how it can impact the future of the machine tool industry.

As part of the relationship, Marc Saunders, director of Global Solutions Centres at Renishaw, spoke at the 2017 International Additive Manufacturing Conference in Hannover. During his talk, Saunders highlighted the rise of new AM applications, such as consumer electronics, where AM can offer benefits in heat management and underlined how measurement technology is helping to industrialize AM.

“Renishaw is looking at how it can further support CECIMO and the good work it does,” explained Lane. “It is important for UK industry to have close ties and representation in Europe, in a time when relationships are changing. This means Renishaw’s relationship with CECIMO is more important than ever before.

“Additive manufacturing is extremely important to the EU industrialization agenda,” continued Lane. “Europe is looking to new ways to improve its productivity and maintain its competitiveness compared with leading counterparts – finding new and innovative ways of manufacturing is key to this. Additive manufacturing and its associated technologies are therefore crucial to European strategy.  Renishaw is committed to sharing its expertise as an AM manufacturer and user to benefit CECIMO and the formation of European policy.”

“The European strategy for AM should go beyond research funding and encompass a wide range of policy and regulatory areas to accelerate the market uptake of AM,” said Filip Geerts, Director General of CECIMO. “These include the development of standards, the improvement of access to finance conditions especially for SMEs, promotion of awareness-raising campaigns, skills development initiatives, intellectual property protection as well as focus on qualification and certification procedures. In order to make it happen, we are very pleased to count on the inspiring advocacy skills of Steward Lane.”