December 2021

14 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk Annual Buyers’ Guide 2022 Insight T his webinar, Chaired by PWE’s Managing Editor, Aaron Blutstein, focussed on the use of AM by Nidec Control Techniques (CT) of a new drive, not only to prototype the device, eventually to be made in hundreds of thousands, but also to manufacture the jigs and fixtures used in the testing programme. The new model is not in commercial service yet, and so we will cover the story of the new drive and how it was put together in the New Year at: www.talkingindustry.org. We were joined by Dr Richard Gibson, Product Development Manager at CT and by Chris Althorpe Senior Design Consultant, Kinneir Dufort, the industrial design consultancy which partners with CT for project design services. Gibson has also been with CT for over 20 years, working on component and circuit design and development. More recently, has taken the lead in developing product families from specification to manufacturing. 3D speeds up the process. Althorpe is another with two decades of experience, this time at Kinnear Dufort. He has used the complete gambit of 3D printing technologies and has worked on many industrial products, as well as medical device design and consumer design. Our third speaker was James Hunt, Head of Strategy for Additive Manufacturing, at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). based at the University of For prototyping and testing – 3D printing has the answers Andy Pye reports on the final Talking Industry session of the year. It covered the burgeoning applications of additive manufacturing (3D printing). Additive manufacturing (AM) uses CAD data or 3D object scanners to deposit material, layer upon layer, in precise geometric shapes. Additive manufacturing