Looking back at IREPA LASER’s 40th anniversary
Successful meetings for additive manufacturing players
A leader in laser innovation, IREPA LASER brought together the entire technological innovation ecosystem – leading additive manufacturing players, industrial partners and institutional representatives from the Grand Est region – at its Illkirch site on 17 and 18 October.
IREPA LASER, which was celebrating its 40th anniversary, has today become a national and European benchmark in laser processes and materials. But beyond technological innovation, IREPA LASER stands out as a pioneer of organisational innovation, having made the bold choice to become an SCIC, an innovative organisational model designed to accelerate growth, with employees and industrial companies as partners.
High-level conferences on metal additive manufacturing
The programme provided a very comprehensive overview of this technology of the future, which opens up prospects for industrial innovation while shaking up the codes and practices of current manufacturing processes.
Experts from the scientific and industrial worlds, including ADDUP, AIMEN, ALSTOM, APERAM, ARIANE GROUP, EDF, FRANCE ADDITIVE, ICUBE, INSTITUT JEAN LAMOUR, IREPA LASER, JANUS ENGINEERING, SIEMENS, TECHNOGENIA and VLM ROBOTICS, shed light on the latest technological advances in processes, machines, materials and digital technology.
The 140 participants had the opportunity to tour IREPA LASER’s workshops and discover the new additive manufacturing machine, a hybrid multi-robot solution that can produce very large parts (up to 5m long and weighing several tonnes) or add/repair localised sections on such parts.
Themed round tables on technology transfer and the commercialisation of innovation
As a major economic player at regional and national level, IREPA LASER also organised two themed round tables with distinguished guests.
These meetings enabled technology transfer players to discuss the improvements and changes of model needed to accelerate innovation and transfer capabilities for SMEs, and allowed the region’s political representatives to renew their support for French industry and technological innovation. In his address, the President of the Grand Est region, Jean Rottner, called for “bringing together the driving forces even more closely to build a renewed offer of innovation support”.
With the participation of:
– Sylvain DORSCHNER, Managing Director of Grand E-Nov+
– Christophe ESCHENBRENNER, President of FRANCE ADDITIVE
– Lionel LIMOUSY, Managing Director of the Institut Carnot MICA
– Marie-Madeleine MAUCOURT, Regional Director of URSCOP Grand Est
– Veronika VALLION, Innovation Officer, BPI France
– Emric VERWAERDE, Managing Director of LASER CHEVAL
– Blaise GOURTAY, Secretary General for Regional and European Affairs at the Prefecture of Bas-Rhin and the Grand Est region (SGARE)
– Jean ROTTNER, President of the Grand Est Region
– Anne-Marie JEAN, Vice-President of the Eurométropole de Strasbourg
– Jean-Paul GAUFILLET, President of IREPA LASER
Laying the foundation stone of the Additive Manufacturing Plant
This day of celebration was an opportunity to unveil the plaque of the future additive manufacturing plant in the presence of the institutional partners. This plant, the first in France dedicated to additive manufacturing using the DED-Laser process, will house three metal 3D printing machines on a 300 m² platform co-financed by the Grand Est Region and the ERDF.
