A new year brings new opportunities. Especially when different parties team up to explore the possibilities of additive manufacturing. At the start of 2017, RAMLAB welcomed some new partners. One of them is Fokker: “RAMLAB provides us with the opportunity to create large components, and that is what we need.”
Fokker – a business unit of GKN Aerospace – is a specialist in designing, developing and manufacturing lightweight structures, electrical wiring systems, landing gear and services for the aerospace and defence industry. So it might not come as a big surprise that Fokker is very familiar with additive manufacturing. “We believe in the global growth of additive manufacturing”, says Marko Bosman, Chief Technologist at Fokker. “For aerospace, that’s what we focus on.” An aerospace company partnering up with a lab for the maritime industry? “To stay at the forefront of technology development, Fokker continuously participates in networks of knowledge institutes, customers, co-developers and suppliers, where skills and knowledge are shared and improved,” Marko says. “RAMLAB is indeed a small niche for us, as it focuses on wire and arc technology for the maritime industry. But actually it is very interesting to team up with other industries and explore other angles. At the end of the day, everybody wants reliable products. We hope RAMLAB will help us achieve this goal.”
Large components
Even though Fokker – as part of GKN Aerospace – has already established its own additive manufacturing competence centres, Marko Bosman believes that RAMLAB can add value: “RAMLAB gives us the opportunity to manufacture large components. Building on that experience, we can accelerate the process and move to the next level. And that’s what we all want: high-volume production of superior quality.”