Mar 30, 2016 | By Tess
German manufacturer of industrial laser 3D printers, Concept Laser, recently announced that in 2015, it achieved its highest level of sales and highest number of new orders ever in its history.
The Lichtenfels-based company, which was founded in 2000 by couple Kerstin and Frank Herzog, has made a name for itself through its patented LaserCUSING layer construction technology and its top-of-the-line industrial grade machines, and has continued to gain prominence and success within the additive manufacturing world.
As laid out in the company’s press release, the company’s sales rose by an astounding 54% from 2014, and its total number of machines ordered rose by 46% from 110 machines in 2014 to 161 machines in 2015, a number which even surpassed the amount of orders expected by the Concept Laser managers. Impressively, over 550 of the company’s laser melting machines have now been installed all across the globe.
As the company explains, their progress has not only been in terms of 3D printers sold and revenue brought in, but also in expanding their teams and number of workers. In 2015, the number of employees reportedly rose 67% from 103 employees in 2014 to 172 employees in 2015. Across the pond, in the United States, Concept Laser Inc.’s Grapevine, Texas team was also able to increase its workforce by an additional 17 employees.
On top of the company’s promising sales and employment increases in 2015, Concept Laser is also celebrating another big success as the founder and President and CEO of the company, Frank Herzog, was nominated for the German Future Prize 2015 and was ultimately crowned as the “Best CEO in the Additive Manufacturing Industry.” Now, if that is not an impressive title to bear, I don’t know what is.
To maintain and continue its astounding success in the past year, Concept Laser will continue to innovate and work hard to keep growing as an additive manufacturing company. As Oliver Edelmann, VP Global Sales and Marketing says, “We are very proud that we have managed to further expand the growth of the previous year. This shows that we continue to follow the right path. But anybody that knows Concept Laser knows that the passion for the technology and the strong drive for innovation will not allow us to rest on our laurels.”
Concept Laser offers its clients a wide range of products, including the large-scale 3D printer line X line 2000R, which boasts a build envelope of 800 x 400 x 500 mm³; its Mlab cusing R ideal for 3D printing small parts with high surface quality; and the popular new M2 cusing model, which features a fully integrated design, and a filter surface five times greater in size than its previous model.
The company, which in its press release acknowledges that certain challenges still exist in integrating additive manufacturing technologies on a large industrial scale, is finding solutions to these problems of digitization and automation by developing an integrated, modular machine concept called “AM Factory of Tomorrow”. The project, which was unveiled at Formnext 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany, will be able to link individual machines together in order to create a fully automated machine network that is able to communicate with its separate parts.
The machine architecture developed by Concept Laser will include flexible machine loading and physical separation of the setting-up and disarming processes. As explained in the press release, “The objective of the development was to coordinate the process components in a more targeted way with interfaces and increase the flexibility of the process design to create an integrated approach.” The hope with the new system is that manual processes, like supplying metal powder, and reworking printed parts will be increasingly reduced, making for a more time and cost efficient process.
Edelmann explains, “The modular integration of the machine technology into the manufacturing environment is amazing thanks to a radically new approach in the design of process components. Ultimately, this makes faster and more economic industrial production solutions available. All development aspects are going to plan: The new machine design will be commercially available at the end of 2016.”
All this to say that Concept Laser has not only experienced a solid year of growth and success, but will continue on into 2016 with a number of innovative new projects and ideas that will surely help to keep the company not only afloat, but thriving in the 3D printing industry.
Posted in 3D Printer Company
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