Additive Snack - Additive Manufacturing (AM) Culture and Building a Successful AM Business

Additive Manufacturing (AM) Culture and Building a Successful AM Business

07/28/21 • 32 min

Host Fabian Alefeld speaks with Markus Seibold, Vice President of Additive Manufacturing at Siemens Energy and Material Solutions, two of the most advanced users of Additive Manufacturing (AM) consumer production. Markus and Fabian discuss why a working culture focused on growth and a shared sense of purpose is far more effective than a culture focused strictly on performance, best practices for creating and nurturing a growth mindset for teams, the bold moves Siemens Energy has made to successfully enable innovation through Additive Manufacturing, and why AM engineers and designers don't get enough credit.

The Additive Snack Podcast is brought to you by EOS.

Key Takeaways:

[1:32] Markus has two diverse roles — driving AM into Siemens Energy’s core product base and expanding the Material Solutions business.

[4:09] Siemens energy's approach to creating and nurturing a 'bigger than business' culture within a team of engineers.

[10:28] A growth mindset pushes the limits of Additive Manufacturing through technological and adoption barriers.

[16:05] Markus requested a budget and resources be moved into AM technical design teams.

[24:30] Siemens Energy is pushing the limits of pure additive-only designs for higher efficiency and lower emissions.

Books Mentioned:

● Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright

● Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

Shareables:

“I fundamentally believe in the mid-to-long run, a growth culture totally outperforms a performance culture.” — Markus Seibold, VP of AM, Siemens Energy & Material Solutions on The Additive Snack Podcast

“If we really want to accelerate the additive application development, we said, we need to, on purpose, put budget and headcount against additive applications. So, we created 30 new headcount requisitions.” — Markus Seibold, VP of AM, Siemens Energy & Material Solutions on The Additive Snack Podcast

“I can truthfully now claim that we [Siemens Energy] are the tipping point where additive is not only a technology push from a few but where it is getting toward a technology pull from many.” — Markus Seibold, VP of AM, Siemens Energy & Material Solutions on The Additive Snack Podcast

The Additive Snack Podcast is brought to you by EOS.

Key Takeaways:

[1:32] Markus has two diverse roles — driving AM into Siemens Energy’s core product base and expanding the Material Solutions business.

[4:09] Siemens energy's approach to creating and nurturing a 'bigger than business' culture within a team of engineers.

[10:28] A growth mindset pushes the limits of Additive Manufacturing through technological and adoption barriers.

[16:05] Markus requested a budget and resources be moved into AM technical design teams.

[24:30] Siemens Energy is pushing the limits of pure additive-only designs for higher efficiency and lower emissions.

Books Mentioned:

● Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright

● Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

Shareables:

Previous Episode

Additive Manufacturing Standards: Influence the Future of Industry with Mohsen Seifi

ASTM is an international standards organization that develops and publishes the standards that influence every step of the Additive Manufacturing process chain. These standards are not created in a silo. They are based on consensus and input from end-users, OEMs, government agencies, trade associations, and more. Therefore, individuals can play an active role in shaping standards and influence the future of Additive Manufacturing systems.

Host Fabian Alefeld speaks with Mohsen Seifi, the Global Director of AM Programs at ASTM International about how standards are created, which standards are important to the AM journey, and how you can and should get involved.

Key Takeaways:

[1:38] Mohsen describes ATSM’s involvement in the AM process and current efforts of the organization.

[6:22] How standards help the AM industry to accelerate and why it’s important for individual contributors to get involved.

[10:54] Key standards in the AM process chain.

[22:07] Mohsen shares an example of how a standard has impacted the core of the AM process.

[28:58] Best practices and tips and tricks for an AM Qualifications/Quality Engineer.

[31:18] Mohsen shares his background in material science and engineering and his journey to his current position as a Director of Global AM Programs.

Shareables:

“Due to the nature of the standard development processes which are consensus-based and voluntary, the pace of a standardization is not rapid.” — Mohsen Seifi, Director Global AM programs, ASTM on The Additive Snack Podcast

“The success of any high impact technology requires consistency, quality, repeatability, and ultimately scalability.” — Mohsen Seifi, Director Global AM programs, ASTM on The Additive Snack Podcast

“In the AM process, you have two main choices: you can either sit back and wait for the standards to be developed and to become available, or you can roll up your sleeves and contribute to the development and influence the direction.” — Mohsen Seifi, Director Global AM programs, ASTM on The Additive Snack Podcast

The Additive Snack Podcast is brought to you by EOS.

Next Episode

Additive Manufacturing (AM): New Materials Influence the Future

We are entering a golden era for 3D printable metal materials. This means manufacturers in many industries will be able to create things they never have before. Host Fabian Alefeld speaks with Dr. Ankit Saharan, Senior Manager of Metals Technology at EOS. Today’s discussion focuses on the past, the present, and the future of metal additive manufacturing (AM) materials. The future takes center stage because a new class of 3D printable superalloys, Metal Matrix Composites (MMC), high entropy alloy, and pure metals will enable incredible new applications for the space industry, semiconductor industry, electronics industry, and many other verticals. Ankit explains what MMCs or high entropy alloys are and what they mean in terms of exciting new applications.

The Additive Snack Podcast is brought to you by EOS.

Key Takeaways:

[1:27] Ankit shares the history of additive manufacturing using metals and how it unlocked future potential.

[6:42] How AM evolved from a centering process into a serial production technology.

[9:31] When developing custom projects with new materials initial resistance will be a challenge.

[15:56] Metal Matrix Composite and High-entropy alloys: What they are, the benefits, and what they mean for the future of additive manufacturing.

[22:28] Choosing one material or a process over another comes down to performance over substitution.

[26:01] Artificial intelligence and new materials escalate the future of AM.

Shareables:

“Materials and processes go hand-in-hand. No matter how much you try to separate them, they always go hand in hand.”— Ankit Saharan, Senior Manager of Metal Technology, EOS, on The Additive Snack Podcast

“We've got much better tools at our disposal like machine learning, artificial intelligence that we've never had before. It enables us to not only iterate faster in terms of material composition but also be able to predict what they are going to give us before we even make these materials physically.”— Ankit Saharan, Senior Manager of Metal Technology, EOS, on the Additive Snack Podcast

“We are reaching a tipping point in additive manufacturing. AM can not be removed out of the supply chain anymore because it produces components that can not be produced with any conventional manufacturing technology anymore.” —Fabian Alefeld, EOS and Host of the Additive Snack Podcast