HP Innovation Journal Issue 13: Winter 2019 | Page 19

On the Scene with
Carmen Blasco
JENNIFER CEASER
It’s 3:00 p.m. at HP’s new 3D Printing and Digital Manu-
facturing Center of Excellence in Barcelona, Spain, and
Metal Jet program manager Carmen Blasco is leading the
project’s daily status meeting. Speaking in both Spanish
and English, a team of around 20 engineers report on tests
they’re running on HP’s cutting-edge 3D printers. Behind
them, visible through a wall of windows, is the Metals lab
where workers outfitted in white coats, gloves, and masks
hover over the enormous, state-of-the-art machines.
Anywhere from 12 to 30 tests per day are run on the six
printers, measuring everything from the efficacy of the
metal powder to the density and cooling of the parts to
the accuracy of the final forms. The Metal Jet program
counts high-profile clients such as GKN Metallurgy and
Volkswagen—which means there’s a lot riding on the
shoulders of the 33-year-old Blasco.
On a typical morning she commutes from Barcelona
to the 3D Center of Excellence in the northern suburb
Sant Cugat del Vallès. The three-plus acre facility,
constructed using eco-friendly building materials, was
designed with sustainability in mind and with the goal
of achieving LEED certification. To maximize Barcelo-
na’s near-constant sun, a photovoltaic canopy provides
110kW of power; additionally, rainwater is captured and
reused for irrigation purposes and native, sustainable
plants are used for landscaping. In contrast to the shiny
PH
OTO
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new building, an 18th-century farmhouse, Can Graells,
stands nearby—a remnant from when the area was once
farms and vineyards. In cooperation with the local city
council, HP fully restored it and is still deciding what it
will be used for.
Inside the two-story Center of Excellence, natural light
filters in through skylights and vertical wall gardens add a
welcome touch of greenery. The airy, open-plan design
where around 2,300 employees work encourages collab-
oration between divisions, and for the first time, the labs
and engineering offices occupy the same space. “In the old
building, there was a maze of hallways to reach the labs,”
recalls Blasco. Today, she can walk just a few steps from
her workspace and see right inside the metal and plastic
3D printing labs, which are separated from the offices by
a huge wall of glass.
Another of Blasco’s favorite aspects was the decision to
name all the meeting rooms after female inventors—like,
for example, Grace Hopper, a pioneering American com-
puter scientist—and there is a photograph and short bio
posted outside each room. “It was confusing at first to find
the right room, but now I really like it and I’ve discovered
a lot about the different women scientists, inventors, and
engineers,” she says.
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