GE Bets Big on Additive Manufacturing

(Image courtesy of GE.)

In business, there are two ways to be on the cutting edge of a burgeoning technology like 3D printing. One is to build your company around that technology from the ground up, as big names like Microsoft, Google and Tesla have done. The other is to buy your way in, acquiring hungry young start-ups before they become your competitors.

Although GE is doing its best to evince the first strategy, the latest news shows that the company has been pursuing the second as well. GE recently announced plans to acquire two suppliers of additive manufacturing equipment: Arcam AB, and SLM Solutions Group AG, for a total of USD$ 1.4 billion.

Schematic of Arcam's electron beam melting technology. (Image courtesy of Arcam.)

Arcam produces metal powders, and is known for inventing the electron beam melting machine for metal-based additive manufacturing. The company’s customers hail from the aerospace and healthcare industries, though GE is likely more interested in the former than the latter. According to GE, Arcam generated $68 million in revenue last year with approximately 285 employees.

SLM Solutions Group produces laser machines for metal-based additive manufacturing with customers in the aerospace, energy, healthcare and automotive industries. Notably, SLM’s metal 3D printers have a proprietary design that utilizes four quad fiber lasers for selective laser melting. SLM states that this design increases the build-up rate by up to 90 percent compared with twin configurations. According to GE, SLM generated $74 million in revenue in 2015 with 260 employees.

“We chose these two companies for a reason,” said David Joyce, President and CEO of GE Aviation. “We love the technologies and leadership of Arcam AB and SLM Solutions. They each bring two different, complementary additive technology modalities as individual anchors for a new GE additive equipment business to be plugged into GE’s resources and experience as leading practitioners of additive manufacturing. Over time, we plan to extend the line of additive manufacturing equipment and products.”

Although these two new acquisitions will be added to GE’s “global ecosystem,” both companies will remain centered in Europe. GE will maintain the headquarters locations for both Arcam (Mölndal, Sweden) and SLM (Lübeck, Germany) along with their management teams and employees.

SLM's technology was used by Germany's Part Time Scientists GmbH, currently competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE. (Image courtesy of SLM.)

GE has stated that it expects to grow its additive manufacturing business to $1 billion by 2020. That’s an ambitious goal, amounting to nearly 20 percent of the current total value of the additive manufacturing market. Nevertheless, these sorts of acquisitions make it all the more likely GE will reach this goal.

For more on 3D printing at the industrial scale, check out The Battle of Manufacturing: Additive vs Subtractive.