Ambassador Kronenburg visits the Ultimaker booth at TCT Asia
Once upon a time it seemed like every new company appearing amidst the hype bubble in 3D Printing was Dutch, so much so that I was enlisted to tour the Lowlands and particularly the Netherlands visiting 3D printing companies at their native HQs.
At this year's TCT Asia, held in Shanghai the Dutch representation on the show floor paved the way for an official ministerial visit from the Dutch ambassador to China, Mr Ed Kronenburg.
Ambassador Kronenburg was joined by a team from the Consulate-General of the Netherlands in Shanghai including Officer for Innovation, Technology & Science (Holland Innovation Network), Mr Bart van Hezewijk.
Mr Kronenburg was toured around the Dutch companies on the show before opening a session on those companies on the TCT Introducing stage.
First on the whistle-stop tour was arguably the largest of the Dutch companies, DSM who has recently sharpened its focus on additive manufacturing launching several new materials and promising to expand from resins for SLA and into both SLS and FDM.
Next stop was Admatec, taking its largest ever booth at a trade show in Asia, Managing Director at Admatec, Michiel de Bruijcker demonstrated Admaflex technology's ability to print in both metals and ceramics.
Next was a stop to meet Innofil3D, which has recently been acquired by chemical giant BASF. BASF used the show to demonstrate a wide range of materials to the Asia Pacific market for the first time, materials including Innofil's Carbon fiber filled polyethylene terephthalate (Innofil3D PET CF) and polyamide (Innofil3D PAHT CF).
“Using 3D printing to produce individually shaped plastic and metal parts has now moved beyond design prototyping and is now becoming a widespread option for functional prototyping in Asia Pacific. For this reason, Asia Pacific is predicted to be the fastest-growing region in the global 3D printing market,” said Michael Tang, Senior Business Development Manager for 3D printing, BASF Asia Pacific in a recent press release. “With our new offerings of 3D printing materials for open systems, we aim to meet the rising demand for 3D printing technology and to support the growth of key industries in Asia Pacific, including automotive, aerospace, and consumer goods.”
The booth at which Mr Kronenburg spent the longest time was undoubtedly Ultimaker, a true rags to riches success story for the Netherlands. During my aforementioned tour of the Lowlands in 2013, Ultimaker's then HQ was one stop. The HQ at the time was a farmhouse where several people were assembling and testing the wooden-framed first generation Ultimaker. Nowadays the company's FDM machinery is considered in the higher echelons of FDM additive manufacturing and is being applied across the globe at company's like VW.
The final stop on the tour was to visit Additive Industries, who were at TCT Asia for the first time. CEO Daan Kersten met with Mr Kronenburg to discuss the principles of metal additive manufacturing, which was rife on the show floor.
TCT Asia demonstrated that Dutch additive manufacturing is still strong and looking at preliminary bookings for TCT Asia 2019, that's set to grow even bigger.
