A REAL GEM

Additive Manufacturing Users Group President Mark Abshire on what makes the AMUG Conference unique.

TCT: AMUG is all about sharing knowledge. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given at the event?

MA: I've gotten so many. I guess one of the things that I really enjoyed the most was when the manufacturers used to have a hands-on workshop, they had their machines and we'd have a class on how to maintain it, how to keep it clean, how to adjust, cleaning mirrors if you're using a system that has lasers or mirrors, print heads, things like that. These are the things that give you the best quality parts, and at the same time, reduces your downtime, and reduces your maintenance costs. So, to me, that is the number one nugget, how to keep my machines running well. So, we try to encourage our exhibitors that are OEMs and have machines, to share that with our users because these are people that have already made the investment in that technology.

TCT: What makes AMUG so special?

MB: AMUG is a jewel of the additive manufacturing community, and when I say the word jewel, I think of the many facets on a jewel. So, there's lots of things that make it special and make it unique. We have a technical exchange of knowledge, we do presentations, and we do hands-on training. The handson training, it's not just maintenance of machines but it's also a hands-on training for applications. I don't know of many other shows and places you can go and pour a casting that was made from a 3D printed mold.

The other part of that facet is the networking and the camaraderie. Once you network and you start meeting people with [like-minded] interests, then you're going to find a common ground, people that you can go back to and look for solutions when you have problems. And a very good example of that camaraderie is going to be a keynote speaker on Tuesday. One of the keynote speakers is an animator and an architect and another is a surgeon. They met up at AMUG in 2019 and they combined their skills to come up with some unique applications for the medical industry. That is the kind of networking that is really an important facet of our gemstone.

The other part here that I'm most proud of is the army of volunteers. It's unbelievable. It's unique to find a situation where people have that much passion, that much willingness to give out of their own pocket, their time and expense, to dedicate to this. It really is a community of people that care about this industry and love this industry.

TCT: What are you looking forward to most at this year’s conference?

MA: The Innovators Showcase with Diana Kalisz. I personally have worked with Diana. She was instrumental in the beginning of the User Group. She was one of the OEMs who would stand up there and talk about a wish list. What do you need as far as a machine? What do you need as far as materials? What do you need in software? And she managed a lot of that and gave that to the people. I think one of the misnomers and what we've had in the past with our Innovator Showcase, is we've had the inventors. Well, inventing and innovator are not necessarily the same thing. So, she has been an innovator in the sense of giving us, the user community, what they asked for and sometimes she would actually tell us, that's not practical, that's not going to happen, that's not reasonable. She has a history of, 30 years ago, getting started and getting the industry going in the right direction for users.

Hear the full interview covering Keynote co-presenters Robert Ducey of LAIKA Studios and Nicholas Jacobson of the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, and Max Haot, founder and CEO of Launcher, and more AMUG activities on the Additive Insight podcast from February 13th: mytct.co/AMUGpod.