The geography of the manufacturing sites that produce 3D printers is a bit of a blindspot for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry. Industry stakeholders in the West have been forced to pay more attention to this over the last few years because the leading patron of Western AM, the US military, has started to signal a preference for machines produced outside of China. But the available information on the topic still leaves much to be desired.
EOS is one of the exceptions to this rule, and I appreciate that the OEM prioritizes informing the market about the evolving state of its production capacity, including an announcement back in January of a $3 million investment in its Texas assembly operations, dedicated to three of the printers in its metals line. And another company in the EOS Group, large-format specialist AMCM, has just announced that it has expanded its production capacity in Weilheim, Germany, in southern Bavaria.
Bauer Group, a German industrial conglomerate with a strong machinery manufacturing division and a longtime AMCM partner, collaborated with AMCM on constructing the new facility, which took about two years from the initial letter of intent to final commissioning. At the site, AMCM initially plans to focus on its three largest format machines, the AMCM M 450, the AMCM M 4K, and the AMCM M 8K.
One of the benefits of the production site is its proximity to AMCM’s headquarters in Starnberg, and for that matter the proximity of both to EOS’s German headquarters in Krailling. This could be especially beneficial insofar as EOS is prioritizing, to some extent, its own largest format machines, given that the company just landed the most valuable publicly announced order in its history: $50 million for 30 of the company’s M4 ONYX machines (its most powerful system) from Beehive Industries.
Combustion chamber made with AMCM M 8K system. Images courtesy of AMCM
Meanwhile, the news couldn’t have arrived soon enough for the US-allied defense and space industrial base, as the unprecedented order from Beehive for EOS’s machines confirms. Earlier this year, the American Center for Manufacturing Innovation (ACMI), an entity created to coordinate the needs of advanced manufacturing companies and US defense demand, became the somewhat surprising first customer of the AMCM M 8K. (EOS Senior VP Greg Hayes is on the ACMI board of advisors.) AMCM views the expectation of growing demand for the M 8K as central to its plans for the new production capacity.
As the “CM” in AMCM stands for Custom Machines, the company is also naturally leaving the option open to use its increased capacity for any future custom work/new models. Given the shifting demand profile for US defense hardware, particularly the large parts that AMCM specializes in enabling, it’s easy to imagine that there will be rising interest in bespoke systems for a select group of customers, most namely primes serving the propulsion markets for both defense and space.
Back to the specific topic of production sites for the AM machine supply chain, a use-case I wrote about a few years ago, involving Conflux Technology‘s series production of heat exchangers for the M 4K, is one of those announcements that has stuck with me. Conflux is another company with ties to EOS, as an AM Ventures portfolio brand and a user of EOS printers.
Interestingly enough, the scale of demand for large-format metal printers is actually a very good match for what large-format metal printers themselves can deliver. The rising demand for EOS and AMCM printers may very well create more opportunities for those kinds of crossovers.
Images courtesy of AMCM