2024 marked a big anniversary for EOS. 35 years since its founding as Electro Optical Systems in Gräfelfing, Germany, with a vision of producing three-dimensional objects using laser technology.
It’s a vision that quickly materialised as BMW became the first customer of its STEREOS 400 stereolithography system in 1990, and was cemented by the installation of its second, the STEREOS 600, for Mercedes Benz just two years later. Then came laser sintering, the process EOS would eventually become synonymous with, first in polymers, followed by direct metal.
To date, EOS has shipped over 5,000 machines globally; its technologies used to manufacture end-use components from sporting goods to space propulsion systems. It’s those applications, according to CEO Marie Langer, that have always been the company’s north star.
“The guiding light was always opening up new business cases for our customers,” Langer told TCT. “It's not only about fancy innovations that are always nice to show at a trade show, but on the other side, it's really about reliable, stable production and making sure that we meet the level of service, the level of hardware quality, materials, processes that our customers are used to from conventional manufacturing.”
In Frankfurt though, where TCT sat down with Langer, EOS did unveil a new polymer machine, the EOS P3 NEXT, and with no lack of fanfare – curtain drop, crowds and all. Though not entirely new – it’s an evolution of its established EOS P 396 machine technology and based on 1,000 systems running in field – the EOS P3 NEXT is promising users a new era of productivity and lower total cost of ownership.
“It's a solid system,” Langer said. “We have a lot of KPIs. We know what goes right. We know what goes wrong, we know how to service it, and we can increase productivity, we can decrease the total cost of ownership, we can stick to the quality that we are able to offer, we can have higher reuse of materials. This is exactly what the industry needs to really set the standard of industrial grade machines that are running over 90%.”
The EOS P3 NEXT, which debuted in North America at RAPID + TCT this spring, is said to offer up to 50% greater productivity compared to the EOS P 396, derived from the development of advanced algorithms that allow for accelerated pre-scanning, recoating and cool-down. It also features real-time feedback and data analytics capabilities, which help manufacturers to tailor production needs and optimise for quality, speed and cost. Users will be able to fine-tune process parameters to achieve the ideal balance of surface finish, dimensional accuracy, and mechanical properties, while they will also have access to the full EOS software suite. The EOS P3 NEXT software leans on many of the capabilities that users of EOS metal additive manufacturing systems will be accustomed to, with polymer customers now having access to a ‘lot of export data’ that allows users to manage their printer fleet and generate quality reports.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
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EOS machines are a common sight at additive manufacturing service providers around the globe – i3D MFG, for example, agreed to purchase additional 12 EOS metal printers last year, bringing its Oregon production fleet to a total of 36 systems – but that doesn’t mean these machines are one-size-fits-all. Langer says it’s "super important” when working on new product launches – like the EOS P3 NEXT or EOS’s recent collaboration with nLight – to work with customers “to understand the market, the market dynamics, and what it takes” to take AM to the next level.
“What is a good productivity level for them? What's the TCO they can afford to still have in business case?” Langer elaborated. “What material criteria do we need to fulfil and how do we deal with post-processing, powder handling? Then, reuse of materials, which was a big topic for us also to evolve and advance to meet industry standards.”
These advancements, such as the enhancements to speed, cost-efficiency and material flexibility found on the EOS P3 NEXT, Langer says, remain focused on, not just productivity, but quality.
“This is always a huge differentiator for us in the market, that we're able to achieve best in class quality,” Langer said. “And we knew that we needed to keep that, to open us to new business.”
Langer took over the leadership of EOS back in 2019, taking the reins from father Dr Hans Langer, who founded the company back in 1989 and is renowned for his pioneering work in the laser industry which helped to shape today’s laser-based AM technology. Speaking with TCT at the time, Langer shared her ambitions to turn 3D printing into a "mainstream, sustainable" manufacturing process. Langer says she is proud of her team for the strides made in this area over the last five years, in identifying where sustainability gains can be made across the organisation and scrutinising its own carbon footprint, as well as those of its materials and hardware products through lifecycle analysis, starting with polymers and more recently moving into metals.
“That's also in our innovation roadmap, continuing the focus on ensuring reuse and circularity where it's possible," Langer said. "And, of course, also making sure that we reduce the energy consumption that we have in an industry in the manufacturing and production world."
Just this month, EOS announced it is aiming to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and has gained approval from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a globally recognised corporate action organisation that supports other companies in aligning with the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Speaking on a panel at last year’s RAPID + TCT event, Langer joined several AM executives on stage where the word ‘collaboration’ came up a lot. There’s an industry-wide understanding that working together is the best way to move the AM industry forward, though little action has been taken to do so outside of AM’s own bubble. It’s why EOS, together with seven other AM companies, agreed to join Leading Minds consortium last year, a initiative that aims to develop a common language framework for AM and take it out to wider industry – vertical-focused trade shows, for example – where the technology isn’t as dominant. It’s here where Langer believes new applications, even entire industries, can be uncovered for AM.
“I think this is actually where the real music plays,” Langer said. “In the end, that is always what we need to focus on. We need to make sure that outside of AM, we're having a very relevant contribution to the industry. Only then can we really make it more sustainable, more innovative, also more customised.”
It’s also in these spaces where the real challenge lies. The shift from prototyping to production is placing different expectations on additive manufacturing hardware, particularly in terms of repeatability, throughput and costs. Manufacturers who have operated with traditional machinery want the same level of quality and service from additive, and EOS says it's working hard to deliver on that.
“They want 24/7 productivity,” Langer said. “They want to make sure that the systems are reliable, they need to be able to service them easily. It needs to be handled by shop floor people. They want to integrate the entire system into their brownfield solutions.”
And EOS isn’t just picturing one machine in the corner of a production floor. It's 5,000th machine installation, for example, was an M 400-4 system that was brought online at Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing (KAM) in January. KAM's parent company ADDMAN now runs 36 EOS additive manufacturing systems in total.
“What we're working for day in day out are real production pieces, that are at scale,” Langer elaborated. “We're talking about like 20, 40, maybe hundreds of machines. This is why my father created the vision to go into this industry, to disrupt the industry, and that's what we're working towards.”
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Langer is energetic. Despite the challenging period the AM industry has been through over the last two years, new customers, and emerging industries that are just tapping into additive, are a source of optimism.
“These are really exciting times,” Langer said. “For me, it gets the most energetic when we can deliver into evolving markets, like data centres. It's a lot about energy consumption, this entire area of heat exchangers, wind energy. There's so many applications in the medical field. Electric cars, you know, where we then really say, hey, these are emerging markets where we can make sure to lock ourselves in, but also making sure with the applications that are created that we're reducing the energy consumption, that we're also creating the connection to our purpose.”
Having weathered the storms of hype and disillusionment, additive manufacturing can afford to get a little boring. But while Langer agrees that machine makers need to focus on developing products that improve upon the less shiny, but essential stuff like reliability and productivity, excitement still matters.
“I think it's really important for us also to make sure that we're not only seen as a boring, reliable partner, but also as a company that is continuously testing innovations in the market,” Langer said. “Then decide if we scale them based on the demand of the customer.”
Those innovations are being brought to reality through the likes of EOS’ AMCM group that is developing its AMCM M8K, large format printer with its 800x800x1200mm building volume and equipped with eight (8) 1kW lasers. Initially developed to improve the competitiveness of ArianeGroup’s Arianne 6 program, this platform is set to be commercialized soon. EOS is also focused on materials advancements, such as its Aluminium AlSi10Mg material that’s now produced with 100% recycled feedstock, and developments in copper with the University of Wolverhampton. There are always evolving industry challenges to grapple with, particularly the demand for bigger metal machines, which EOS is taking on through internal developments on its own hardware, and partnerships with companies like Solukon, which launched its largest post-processing system for metal parts up to 1.5 meters tall at the end of last year.
In a recent interview with TCT, EOS North America President Glynn Fletcher described EOS as "an overnight success 36 years in the making", noting the slow build in the company's first 10 years, selling its first 100 machines, to the last 10 years, which have resulted in the most growth. According to Langer, that journey is poised to continue at pace.
“I think we're pretty well conditioned and positioned to evolve there,” Langer said. “We have very exciting customer cases in the pipeline right now, and now it's really about delivering and focusing on them and growing the market, slowly and surely.
“I think the market was never as promising as it is now.”
