On March 17 the Italian association of industrial designers (Aipi) awarded the “Leonardo da Vinci” international prize to acknowledge the design of the Freeformer, an innovative system for additive manufacturing.

“I’m delighted to accept this coveted award on behalf of Arburg Italy. Our Freeformer is unique - both in terms of design and the numerous options that it offers to plastics processing companies for the additive manufacturing of fully-functional one-off parts and small batches”, said the managing director Adriano Carminati at the award ceremony, which was held during the Mecspe trade fair in Parma, Italy.

Established by Italy’s Aipi association in 1981, the international “Leonardo da Vinci” Award is presented every two years to individuals and companies who have made a valuable contribution to design and technical innovation for the industry. In addition to Arburg, this year’s recipients included Italian engineer Aldo Costa, who has designed and developed 32 Formula 1 racing cars, the Helicopter Division of Finmeccanica, and cycling company Victoria.

In order to also achieve a high level of production efficiency during the production of small batches down to a single unit, Arburg complemented its Allrounder injection moulding machines with the Freeformer for additive manufacturing, which it introduced to the Italian market in 2015. The Freeformer uses an additive manufacturing process to produce fully-functional plastic parts from qualified standard granulates on the basis of 3D CAD data.