TCT Awards
The 2025 TCT Awards ceremony saw Wilhelm Meiners, inventor of the Laser-Powder-Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M) process inducted into the prestigious TCT Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame recognises members of the additive manufacturing industry who have dedicated a lifetime to research, development, innovation and promotions of the technologies that have created and perpetuated a multitude of new business avenues globally.
In 1994 Meiners began what would become a long and prosperous career at Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, Aachen, Germany. As a PHD student Wilhelm invented one of the most important metal additive manufacturing technologies - the Laser-Powder-Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M) process.
Over the next 20+ years he continued to develop the process, it’s applications and machine technology. In many of these pioneering developments the basis of today’s most relevant applications were established. The fundamentals of this work made a significant contribution to the change from rapid prototyping to additive manufacturing. .
In 2018 Wilhelm left the world of academia to work in industry as an AM Expert at Trumpf Laser and Systemtechnik GmbH, before returning to Fraunhofer in 2023 as Chief Scientist Additive Manufacturing.
"It is a great honour for me and I am grateful that my work and the work of the ILT Group has been recognised in this way," Meiners said. "I have developed a technology, but it is your work, your applications, your business cases, your use cases around this process [that meant] it became more than a process, more than a technology, it became an innovation."
Watch Wilhelm's acceptance speech in full below.
