OPM Laboratory Co., Ltd is a Japanese manufacturing company that specialises in hybrid metal laser sintering and CNC milling processes. Here OPM's CEO, Kazuho Morimoto outlines how the company has used its in-house Matsuura LUMEXAvance-25hybridmachines in the production of mould tools for plastics injection moulding, as well as wider trends in Asian manufacturing markets. It has been over 10 years since the development and introduction of Metal Laser Sintering technology. As of 2010 the market for this technology has been focused in Europe and the US. In these markets 'Additive Metal Manufacturing' as the technology is known, is a growth market with active government, academic and industrial involvement to establish suitable process and quality standards. This was especially evident at EuroMould 2011 held last year in Frankfurt, Germany. On a scale 10 times larger than anything in Japan, manufacturers were there to exhibit the latest developments and use the opportunity to demonstrate the use of the technology in a mass production environment rather than just limited use prototypes.
展开▼
