The 13th Annual International Wohlers Conference will be held with the EuroMold 2011 (Frankfurt, Germany) Conference. According to Terry Wohlers, his Design Innovation from Additive Manufacturing conference will take place on Thursday, December 1. The EuroMold trade fair is November 29 – December 2 at the Exhibition Center Frankfurt.

Past conferences have brought into focus trends and major developments in rapid product development, additive manufacturing (AM), and 3D printing. This year’s event will concentrate on how AM is allowing people to unlock ideas and produce designs that were impossible to manufacture in the past. Many of the parts and assemblies being developed are unprecedented. AM allows designers and engineers to reduce the number of parts that would otherwise go into a product, as well as cut inventory, assembly, labor, maintenance, material, weight, and carbon emissions.

“Innovations in design are inspiring others to use AM to create products that were before unimaginable,” said Dr. Eberhard Döring, CEO of DEMAT, the organizer of this trade fair. This work is expected to lead to a staggering amount of design innovation in the future. “What we have seen thus far is exciting, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Döring stated.

The conference features nine speakers from Belgium, England, Germany, South Africa, and the USA. With design innovation believed to be at an all-time high, due to advances in AM technology, the speakers are expected to reveal some mind-blowing concepts that bear little resemblance to designs from the past.

The December 1, 2011 conference will feature the following topics and speakers:

Welcome Address:
 Dr. Eberhard Döring, Chief Executive Officer 
DEMAT GmbH (Germany)

Keynote: Atoms Are the New Bits, 
Dr. Ping Fu, CEO
Geomagic, Inc. (USA)

Light Weight and Complex Part Design,
 Dr. Ian Halliday, CEO
3T RPD Ltd. (UK)

Design Innovation Capabilities and New AM Material Opportunities at EADS,
 Mr. Frank Palm, Senior Expert, Welded Structures & Processes
 EADS (Germany)

AM’s Impact on Design: A Veteran’s Perspective, 
Mr. David Leigh, President
Harvest Technologies (USA)

Design Innovation with AM Starts at the Idea Phase, 
Dr. Eric Klemp, Commercial Director
Direct Manufacturing Research Center (Germany)

AM Inspired Design,
 Prof. Deon de Beer, Executive Director, Technology Transfer & Innovation
Vaal University of Technology (South Africa)

Revolutionizing Design through Additive Manufacturing,
 Mr. Wim Michiels, Executive Vice President
Materialise NV (Belgium)

Providing Added Value through Additive Manufacturing, 
Dr. Lionel Theodore Dean, Creative Director
FutureFactories (UK)

The Future of Design Innovation with AM,
 Mr. Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant and President
Wohlers Associates, Inc. (USA)

EuroMold
http://euromold.demat.com

Wohlers Associates
http://wohlersassociates.com