Germany - The 24th Fakuma fair, held from 13 to 17 October in Friedrichshafen, Germany, drew a record number of 45,721 visitors from 120 countries as well as 1,780 exhibitors from 38 nations, reports organiser P.E. Schall.

Today’s global market has created a variety of challenges for consumer brands. Products that used to be visibly unchanged for years may now be in a state of continuous evolution. The ongoing development of product design can be time-consuming and costly for companies because of the scale and processes involved.

Rutland Plastics is a custom injection molding company located in Rutland, United Kingdom that produces products for a wide range of companies and industries.

Based in Bangor, Northern Ireland, Whale Pumps designs and manufactures a diverse range of pumping and heating systems that include plastic and rubber parts for consumer and industrial applications around the world.

Genesis Systems Group, headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, designs, builds and implements robotic automation systems. Its expertise enables the production of a wide array of products in the automotive, construction, aviation and recreational vehicle industries, to name a few.

Netherlands – Visiting Additive Industries' stand at Formnext 2015 was truly worthwhile as the company offered visitors a unique view into their industrial 3D metal printing system via a 3D movie. The dutch company has unveiled what they refer to as the world’s ‘first truly industrial’ 3D metal printing system.

Simpoe SAS said it has entered into a sales and marketing distribution agreement with Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. under which the former will develop and maintain the SolidWorks Plastics line of simulation software products launched at the beginning of April.

Size and design are said to make the unit adaptable to applications and scanning environments.

Czech Republic - Innomia uses layer-by-layer DMLS (direct metal laser sintering) technology from EOS to implement conformal cooling, reducing injection moulding time by 17% and improving component quality.

Germany/UK - Aerospace and other manufacturing sectors likely to adopt hybrid machine tools once volume production brings costs down.