SLM : opens branch operations in India

Lübeck, 12 June 2017 - SLM So­lu­tions Group AG ('SLM So­lu­tions'; 'SLM'), a lead­ing provider of metal-based ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­ogy, has been rep­re­sented in India since the start of this year with a sub­sidiary based in Ban­ga­lore. In the fu­ture, SLM So­lu­tions is to work there, amongst oth­ers, to­gether with the In­ter­na­tional Ad­vanced Re­search Cen­tre for Pow­der Met­al­lurgy and New Ma­te­ri­als (ARCI), an In­dian gov­ern­ment re­search cen­tre in Hy­der­abad, and with De­sign­Tech Sys­tems Ltd. ('De­sign­Tech Sys­tems'), one of the lead­ing ser­vice providers for ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies in India. In this part­ner­ship, SLM So­lu­tions, ARCI and De­sign­Tech Sys­tems are jointly pur­su­ing the ob­jec­tive of es­tab­lish­ing metal-based ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing in India's in­dus­try.

SLM So­lu­tions has al­ready long cul­ti­vated close re­la­tion­ships with lead­ing in­sti­tutes and com­pa­nies from var­i­ous sec­tors in India. Such in­dus­trial part­ner­ships form an im­por­tant as­pect of SLM's cor­po­rate strat­egy. Uwe Böger­shausen, Man­age­ment Board mem­ber of SLM So­lu­tions Group AG, com­ments: 'This close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the ARCI in Hy­der­abad not only of­fers us the op­por­tu­nity to now in­ten­sify our busi­ness re­la­tion­ships in India, but along with our sub­sidiary also forms a good base to serve this coun­try even bet­ter.'

The ARCI is an au­tonomous re­search and de­vel­op­ment cen­tre within the In­dian gov­ern­ment's De­part­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy. Its task con­sists of re­search­ing and de­vel­op­ing new high-per­for­mance ma­te­ri­als and processes for niche ap­pli­ca­tions in dif­fer­ent sec­tors. Im­ple­ment­ing and eval­u­at­ing in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies for com­mer­cial de­ploy­ment in In­dian in­dus­try forms one of its focus ac­tiv­ity areas.
De­sign­Tech Sys­tems com­mands ex­ten­sive ex­per­tise in the area of com­puter-aided prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion, as well as ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­ogy. The com­pany has built up a far-reach­ing net­work to com­pa­nies from highly dif­fer­ing sec­tors both na­tion­ally and in­ter­na­tion­ally over a more than 18-year pe­riod.

SLM So­lu­tions, ARCI and De­sign­Tech Sys­tems agreed on es­tab­lish­ing a test and demon­stra­tion cen­tre in Hy­der­abad. The three part­ners' ex­per­tise is being in­te­grated there to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble ser­vice to In­dian in­dus­try in the in­tro­duc­tion and ap­pli­ca­tion of ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies.

ARCI Di­rec­tor Dr. G. Pad­man­ab­ham ex­plains: 'Pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships such as these help us es­tab­lish ac­cess to dif­fer­ent sec­tors and sup­port them in tack­ling some crit­i­cal chal­lenges in prod­uct de­sign and pro­duc­tion. Metal-based ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing forms a focus area at ARCI. Our re­search ef­forts are ori­ented to de­vel­op­ing ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing com­po­nents and spe­cial al­loys for the au­to­mo­tive and aero­space areas, as well as other re­lated ap­pli­ca­tions in dif­fer­ent sec­tors.'

Ste­fan Ritt, Head of Global Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at SLM So­lu­tions Group AG, notes: 'It is a great ho­n­our for us to work to­gether with a renowned in­sti­tu­tion such as ARCI. ARCI is an out­stand­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion that works in­ten­sively with 'Best in Class' tech­nol­ogy to pro­vide ma­te­ri­als, processes and tech­no­log­i­cal so­lu­tions for In­dian in­dus­try. Its re­search ac­tiv­i­ties are im­pres­sive. The tech­nol­ogy cen­tre of­fers a great base to re­search and eval­u­ate the ap­pli­ca­tion and fur­ther util­i­sa­tion of metal pow­der based ma­te­ri­als and ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing for var­i­ous spe­cial­ist dis­ci­plines.

Vikas Khan­velkar, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, De­sign­Tech Sys­tems Ltd., adds: 'At De­sign­Tech, we have long backed the de­ploy­ment of the lat­est tech­nolo­gies in India's en­gi­neer­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­tries. It en­ables In­dian com­pa­nies to de­velop ro­bust prod­ucts with re­duced times and costs, help­ing them stay com­pet­i­tive. Ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­ogy - also called 3D print­ing tech­nol­ogy - has been fur­ther de­vel­oped to a very sig­nif­i­cant ex­tent, so its ap­pli­ca­tions are no longest re­stricted to prod­uct de­sign val­i­da­tion, but can now also be de­ployed as an al­ter­na­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­ogy to de­velop com­po­nents, struc­tural el­e­ments and com­plete so­lu­tions. The tech­nol­ogy cen­tre will serve the com­pany as a bridge to un­der­stand metal-based ad­di­tive ap­pli­ca­tions bet­ter, and analyse how this tech­nol­ogy can be used op­ti­mally in their prod­uct de­vel­op­ment processes. SLM So­lu­tions is the best part­ner for us to fur­ther es­tab­lish ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing in India.'

About SLM So­lu­tions

Lübeck-based SLM So­lu­tions Group AG is a lead­ing provider of metal-based ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­ogy. The com­pany's shares are traded in the Prime Stan­dard of the Frank­furt Stock Ex­change. The stock has been listed in the Tec­DAX index since March 21, 2016. SLM So­lu­tions fo­cuses on the de­vel­op­ment, as­sem­bly and sale of ma­chines and in­te­grated sys­tem so­lu­tions in the field of se­lec­tive laser melt­ing. SLM So­lu­tions cur­rently em­ploys over 320 mem­bers of staff in Ger­many, the USA, Sin­ga­pore, Rus­sia, India and China. The prod­ucts are utilised world­wide by cus­tomers in par­tic­u­lar from the aero­space, en­ergy, health­care and au­to­mo­tive in­dus­tries.

About ARCI

ARCI is an au­tonomous re­search and de­vel­op­ment cen­tre of the De­part­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy (DST) of the In­dian gov­ern­ment in Hy­der­abad, in the fed­eral state of Telan­gana. ARCI was founded in 1996 with the task of de­vel­op­ing unique and in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies in the ad­vanced ma­te­ri­als area that can be utilised tech­ni­cally and com­mer­cially, be­fore sub­se­quently trans­fer­ring them to In­dian in­dus­try. A unique char­ac­ter­is­tic of ARCI is that it is sec­tor-ori­ented. ARCI is ob­lig­ated to de­velop and demon­strate tech­nolo­gies on a sig­nif­i­cantly large scale, not only to prove the tech­nol­ogy's re­li­a­bil­ity and con­sis­tency, but also to ef­fec­tively raise mar­ket aware­ness so the sub­se­quent tech­nol­ogy trans­fer to in­dus­try en­joys bet­ter prospects of suc­cess.
To en­sure that mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary in­puts can eas­ily be used for all of its tar­geted de­vel­op­ment ef­forts, ARCI has formed cen­tres of ex­cel­lence (CoEs) in many generic re­search areas ori­ented to ma­te­ri­als and ma­te­ri­als pro­cess­ing such as nano­ma­te­ri­als, ce­ram­ics, en­gi­neered coat­ings, fuel cells, as well as car­bon ma­te­ri­als, sol-gel coat­ings, laser ma­te­ri­als pro­cess­ing, solar en­ergy and au­to­mo­tive en­ergy ma­te­ri­als. All these CoEs are in­volved in de­vel­op­ing ad­vanced ma­te­ri­als based tech­nolo­gies re­lat­ing to their core com­pe­tence.

About De­sign­Tech Sys­tems Ltd.

De­sign­Tech Sys­tems Ltd. is a lead­ing sup­plier of CAD / CAM / CAE / PLM so­lu­tions and ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies, and a lead­ing en­gi­neer­ing ser­vice provider in India. De­sign­Tech Sys­tems has been work­ing for more than 18 years with com­pa­nies from all sec­tors both in India and abroad to sup­port them in their most com­plex and chal­leng­ing en­gi­neer­ing ini­tia­tives, and help them achieve the best re­turns on their in­vest­ments in so doing. De­sign­Tech Sys­tems is the only Plat­inum Part­ner for Siemens PLM Soft­ware in India and has strate­gic con­nec­tions with global com­pa­nies, such as Al­tair En­gi­neer­ing for its Hy­per­Works Suite. De­sign­Tech Sys­tems has also re­alised so­lu­tions for Strata­sys 3D Print­ing Tech­nol­ogy, ESI cast­ing and weld­ing sim­u­la­tion soft­ware, Math­Works for MAT­LAB and SIMULINK, SLM metal 3D print­ing tech­nol­ogy and Solid­scape high-pre­ci­sion 3D print­ing so­lu­tions. For more in­for­ma­tion, please visit us at www.​des​ignt​echs​ys.​com