Market Development Group

The Market Development Special Interest Group started work in October 2003 with a brief to plan AILU activity to ‘Grow The Market’ for members. The MD Group quickly identified the priorities as growing both the size and the profitability of the market and, a particular problem for both volume and profitability, the limited awareness of the strengths and characteristics of laser processing and laser processed parts. The group concluded that raising the awareness of designers to the opportunities presented by laser processing would allow them to design components that could be produced more reliably at lower cost and yield more functionally-competitive products. By moving the focus from individual component cost to overall product cost-effectiveness and competitiveness, the market for laser processing will be enhanced whilst relieving some of the pressure on cost.

A major barrier was found to be the way the purchasing function operates in many companies to impede the formation of a partnership between the supplier and the designer. Indeed, the ideal of an effective partnership between the designer, the buyer and the supplier, preferably facilitated by the buyer, exists only in a few of the most visionary companies.

To reach out to design engineers a new ‘Design for Laser Manufacture’ area of the AILU web is developed with the aim of broadening awareness of Design for Manufacture by Laser Processing. This is be a sub-web of www.ailu.org.uk (Design for laser manufacture), it can also be accessed directly through www.designforlasermanufacture.com. It includes images and video clips to enhance understanding of the message, supported by data sheets and links to key providers.  If you would like to provide information for this initiative see Submitting Your Material on the Design for laser manufacture website.

Lasers in Design: Website outreach to engineering designers

The Outreach Project

Thanks to a grant from the Department of Trade and Industry, AILU is currently developing a ‘design for laser-based manufacturing’ sub-web as a valuable resource for engineering designers. The DTI grant was received in December 2005, and the site was launched in 2007.

Go to www.designforlasermanufacture.com to see the website.

REQUEST for good quality material

AILU members and non-members alike are invited to submit material.

The aim

The primary purpose of the Design for Laser Manufacture sub-web is to encourage designers to ‘think laser’ and to produce product specifications that are optimised for laser-based fabrication; this will be done by providing examples and supporting information in the form of pictures (of laser-manufactured parts), video clips, slide presentations and information sheets.

Submitting Your Material send details to dlm@ailu.org.uk