Fried wins RTAM/SME Industry Achievement Award
We”re very proud to announce that Materialise CEO Fried Vancrean has just been awarded the Rapid Technologies & Additive Manufacturing/Society of Manufacturing Engineers Industry  Achievement award. We”re pleased that it not only recognizes Frieds pioneering work at Materialise over the past 20 years but also his work for the entire industry. We”re also pleased that as well as Fried”s involvement with i.materialise was one of the specific reasons he was commended.  This is amazing considering “Fried also pioneered several major applications in the AM sector including stereolithographic medical models, colored stereolithographic medical models, perforated support structures, RapidFit Fixtures, surgical guides for oral and orthopaedic surgeons, and automated hearing aid design” as well as work in 3D printing software.
Above is one of the very first articles about Fried Vancraen after starting Materialise, it appeared in the October 1990 “Industrie, Magazine voor Produktie, Inkoop en Techniek (Industry, Magazine for Manufacturing, Procurement and Technology) . The article details how the initial stereolithography machine was purchased from Ciba Geigy subsidiary 3D Systems for 10,000,000 Belgian Francs. Lasers are said to be expensive to replace  at 500,000 Francs (Elsewhere in the magazine a Sony Microsystems Unix Workstation coplete with diskette drive and RISC processor cost 550,000). Ciba Geigy was a pharmaceutical company that after the merger with Sandoz became Novartis. The article also mentions that 3D systems is the only company in the world with 3D printers. It goes on to discuss the research Dupont, Sony, DTM, Cubital, Hydronetics  and Quadrax are doing to develop 3D printers in order to compete with 3D Systems. The article tells us about how Fried was first a researcher for the University and then left to start Materialise taking on the University as an investor. Despite the costs the article is very upbeat, especially since before the launch of the company two customers Agfa Gevaert and Bell Alcatel have been found.  Congrats Fried!
The initial company introduction published in 1990. “Fax or send us your design and we fax you a quote within 24 hours.” Below it says that Materialise accepts 5.24″ floppy disks (Unix, Xenix and Dos), 3.5″ diskette, 0.25″ cartridge tape, 8mm data cartridge, TK 50 cartridge, tape 1600 bpi, modem (v21, v22, v22bis, v23) and BIT net networking. I”m guessing uploading took a while. Below, a scan of the invitation to Materialise”s opening reception in September 1990.
An advertisement in the Industrie Magazine that dates it quite well.
