Forum Brings Together CCAM Members to Further Surface Engineering Research

On September 23rd Oerlikon Metco sponsored a Surface Engineering Forum at the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM). The forum was designed to give Oerlikon Surface Solutions personnel exposure to CCAM’s surface engineering roadmap and capabilities and to allow CCAM members to participate in an overview of Oerlikon capabilities in Thin Film and Thick Layer coatings with the goal to develop future research in this area.

Steve Bomford, Oerlikon Metco Manager and CCAM Technology Advisory Council member, said “This was the first event of this kind at CCAM and provided an ideal forum for member attendees from many disciplines to share ideas, to build on relationships and take advantage of the CCAM philosophy of bringing together best-in-class manufacturers and research institutions in order to collaborate in a free and open environment.”

Around 35 participants including representatives from industry and university members and CCAM staff participated in the day’s activities. The event was opened by CCAM’s CEO, Joe Moody. The technical program began with an overview of the CCAM surface engineering roadmap presented by CCAM R&D Manager, Ben Zimmerman. This was followed by overviews of state-of-the-art technologies and applications on Thin Film coatings by Oerlikon Balzers’ CTO, Helmut Ruedigier, and Thick Layer coatings by Oerlikon Metco’s CTO, Richard Schmid.

Engaging and productive workshops were held to develop potential research projects focused on four main areas: customer drivers, business drivers, human factors, and internal drivers.

“The opportunity to learn more about Oerlikon’s extensive capabilities in surface engineering was invaluable to the teams from CCAM and its member organizations,” said Bob Fagan, CCAM Chief Technology Officer. “One of the strengths of CCAM’s research model is the collaboration of multiple organizations to address critical manufacturing technologies.”

Richard Schmid said “CCAM’s range of membership makes events such as these the ideal environment to tap into visionary thinking capturing the key aspects of new and upcoming technologies within the framework of market and key customer requirements.”

CCAM’s 21 industry and government members include Aerojet Rocketdyne, Airbus, Canon Virginia Inc., Chromalloy, Newport News Shipbuilding, Oerlikon Metco, Rolls-Royce, Sandvik Coromant, Siemens,  Blaser Swisslube, EOS, Hermle Machine Co., Mitutoyo, Paradigm Precision, Buehler, Cool Clean Technologies, GF AgieCharmilles, Mechdyne, National Instruments, SIS and the NASA Langley Research Center.

Academic partners are the University of Virginia, Virginia State University, Virginia Tech and Old Dominion University.