Materialise Moving U.S. Headquarters to "Factory of the Future"

By DE Editors

Materialise will begin medical production in Plymouth, MI, to meet the increasing needs of the orthopaedic industry.

Materialise is celebrating 20 years of product development through its software and hardware infrastructure via additive manufacturing. At the new site, it will establish an additive manufacturing facility that will produce customized surgical guides. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation approved a tax credit for more than half of a million dollars over seven years to encourage Materialise to establish its facility in Michigan. The project is expected to create more than 200 new jobs, including 80 within Materialise.

Over the last three years, the SurgiCase orthopaedics team at Materialise has been providing a solution for total knee replacement.  Additive manufacturing can be used to create surgical tools and guides that are customized for patient-specific anatomy.

The guides will be built on selective laser sintering stations. The production process will be planned, controlled, and tracked by Materialise's Magics e-RP software. Magics e-RP automates the rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing process from order and data preparation, through platform scheduling and machine monitoring, to production planning and part tracking.

For more information, visit Materialise.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.