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GE: Industry in 3D
GE’s Industry in 3D: It’s time to pay attention to Additive Manufacturing In May this year, GE held its first ‘Industry in 3D’ event, gathering several hundred international participants from the world of business to discover the current status of Additive Manufacturing and the opportunities that it presents to industry. Whilst the technology has come on rapidly in recent years, GE recognises that there is still a long way to go to convince many business leaders that ‘the time is now’ for its wider adoption. As Metal Additive Manufacturing magazine’s Nick Williams reports, this event sought, through GE’s story and those of its partners and customers, to make the case for AM.
At its inaugural ‘Industry in 3D’ event in New York, USA, on May 3, 2018, GE invited leaders from across industry to make the case for Additive Manufacturing as a technology that can no longer be ignored. The event, which attracted more than three hundred international participants from across the business world, took place in Industria, a historic West Village venue that, when filled with an impressive exhibit area containing state of the art AM machines and applications, served to emphasise just how dramatically the world of engineering has changed since the building’s construction in 1924. Whilst the tremendous growth of AM over the last decade has been clear for those within the industry to see, in organising this event, GE responded to the fact that not only is there a pressing need to further educate the wider industrial community about AM, but that as a company it is in a unique position to drive this effort. GE has rarely been out of the news over the last year, in large part as the result of a challenging period
Vol. 4 No. 2 © 2018 Inovar Communications Ltd
for the business which culminated in its recent decision to spin-off its Healthcare division and sell its stake in Baker Hughes, allowing it to instead focus on its core industrial businesses such as aviation, power and renewable energy. Its activities
in Additive Manufacturing, which are of course inextricably intertwined with these core industrial areas, have made a significant contribution to the development of the wider AM industry and, as a result, positioned GE firmly at its heart.
Fig. 1 GE’s inaugural Industry in 3D event featured keynote presentations and panel discussions with industry experts and end-users
Metal Additive Manufacturing | Summer 2018
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