Winners in the second annual LEAP Awards, celebrating the best components and services across the mechanical and electrical engineering design space, were unveiled on November 5, 2019. Across 13 categories, the judging panel awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze recognitions, as well as Honorable Mentions for certain submissions. The awards program is supported by three leading publications in the design engineering space: Design World, Fluid Power World and EE World.

Paul J. Heney, Vice President, Editorial Director, Design World, said, “Our judges, all of whom are independent engineering industry professionals, did a remarkable job in quickly turning around the scoring this year. We had a combination of judges from last year and several new judges.”

This year, the program changed from having a single declared winner in each category to a medalist concept, with the potentials for a Gold, Silver and Bronze winner in any category, as well as Honorable Mentions. Depending on the scoring ranges, not all categories will necessarily have all medals awarded, and Honorable Mentions are also optional — and tied to how close an entry came to the medalist scores.

The winners will be recognized at a ceremony in Santa Clara, California, in conjunction with the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum and DeviceTalks West events, on December 9th. Information on how to register for the ceremony will be posted shortly.

The medalists and honorable mentions for the Additive Manufacturing category are:

Gold: HP Inc. The Next Chapter in the Digital Industrial Revolution with HP Metal Jet

HP Metal Jet is the world’s most advanced 3D printing technology for the high-volume manufacturing of production-grade metal parts.

HP, for the first time in the industry, brought together the technology, economics, and quality required to bring metals 3D printing to mass production. Providing up to 50 times more productivity at a significantly lower cost, HP Metal Jet enables companies to completely rethink the way they design, manufacture, and deliver new solutions in the digital age.

With HP Metal Jet, HP was able to take all the advantages of 3D printing— time/cost savings, digital design freedom, flexible manufacturing, localized production, and greater sustainability—and bring them to an even larger arena: the mass-production of metal parts, a trillion-dollar global market that encompasses major industries like automotive, medical, and heavy machinery, as well as the myriad others that they touch. Whether it’s helping to accelerate the electrification of the $2 trillion global auto market, the production of complex parts for industrial equipment, or the creation of new surgical tools that improve the quality of life for billions of people around the world, the disruptive promise of HP’s metals 3D printing innovation is massive. And HP is convening the largest most innovative companies in the world from GKN to Volkswagen to bring this disruption to fruition.

Furthermore, the World Economic Forum estimates cross-industry digital transformation driven by advanced new technologies like metal 3D printing to be as much as $100 trillion to business and society worldwide in the next 10 years alone.

Silver Velo3D: Fulfilling the Promise of AM by Manufacturing Anything
VELO3D empowers companies to manufacture anything. By bringing together innovations in software, hardware, and process control, VELO3D created the industry’s first SupportFree solution for 3D metal printing, enabling unlimited design innovation by reducing the need for support structures in metal additive manufacturing. The company’s Sapphire System is built with a semiconductor mindset on quality assurance, ensuring repeatability and dependability throughout serial manufacturing. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, VELO3D helps companies deliver immediate business impact by making the impossible, possible.

Bronze, Stratasys: Stratasys F120: Transforming Industrial-Grade 3D Printing
Setting the stage for a transformation in 3D printing, the new Stratasys F120 3D Printer is powering the next generation of designers, engineers, and educators with easy-to-own, industrial-grade additive manufacturing technology. As the newest member of the F123 Series of FDM printers, the F120 brings industrial 3D printing to the masses – backed by simple controls, remote self-monitoring, exclusive 3D printing hardware, and extremely high levels of reliability and repeatability.

The F120 makes it simple even for the novice to get started with 3D printing in the design studio, office or education environments. While many desktop 3D printers struggle to produce reliable and accurate parts without technical know-how, the F120 printer is designed to create high-quality FDM models time-after-time.

Allowing for multiple uses in a single system, the F120 can support everything from rapid prototyping and tooling to full manufacturing. With an ability to print up to 3X faster than competitive solutions and tested 24/7 performance, large filament boxes allow for up to 250 hours of uninterrupted printing.

Congratulations to the winners!