In late 2019, BEAMIT President Mauro Antolotti took the kind of call he gets numerous times a week. On the other end of the phone was the founder of a young company pitching its 3D printing post-processing services to the Italian service provider. Though Antolotti is no stranger to a sales pitch, they don’t normally play out as this one did.
Not only was Antolotti interested in buying the heat treatment and surface finishing services that PRES-X was offering, but by January 2020 he had acquired a 25% stake in the company. It was the first of several business investments BEAMIT would make over the following 18 months, with PRES-X founder Andrea Scanavini leading their integration as BEAMIT Group General Manager from July 2020. In this role, he became responsible for taking the best practices and business models from each incoming company and reducing their weak points.
When announcing Scanavini as the new General Manager, Antolotti spelt out that the arrangement with PRES-X was just the first of multiple steps that would turn the company from a single entity into a group of companies. Scanavini said he was honoured to be chosen for the role, that he believes the strength of a company lies with its people, and that between him and BEAMIT there was a mutual love for embracing, and then addressing, challenges.
Speaking to TCT almost a year on, he elaborated on what those challenges are.
“The first one is the technological development of the value chain,” Scanavini said. “We are addressing the innovation in all the phases of the value chain, starting from the powders, where we work together with Sandvik to create specific powders for specific applications and then go into the printing process, cleaning, heat treatment and surface finishing, all integrated and digitally connected. The second [challenge] is the cost. Our project has as a main target the cost reduction of additive manufacturing production, using specific processes that make all the phases shorter and cheaper; the concentration of all the phases inside the company and in the same factory in order to get the cost related to shipping, logistics and so on [reduced].”
BEAMIT’s first response to these challenges was to bring PRES-X under its umbrella. PRES-X’s offering features solutions that automatically remove powder and substrates from printed parts – including internal supports – in the same phase, as well as a solution that combines HIP and heat treatment cycles, which is said to eliminate porosity and internal defects, while also improving characteristics at the microstructural level. It also has a patented method for surface finishing - which again addresses the surfaces of cavities and internal components - and offers functional validation tests of components at the end of the work cycle. The PRES-X business has also started offering DryLyte dry electropolishing technology after recently partnering with GPAINNOVA.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
Sandvik Additive Manufacturing
Impeller component produced with metal 3D printing.
Companies that have followed PRES-X into the BEAMIT Group include ZARE and 3T Additive Manufacturing. ZARE was acquired because of its machining capabilities and use of GE Additive machines (BEAMIT previously had metal 3D printing systems from EOS and SLM Solutions only), while 3T AM was brought into the business because of its geographic location, design for additive manufacturing proficiencies and familiarity with materials like copper alloys.
“The strategy of BEAMIT Group is to become the leading company in the additive manufacturing market worldwide,” Scanavini explained. “All the acquisitions that we have in place, both the acquisitions we have done and the new ones that are coming, are not only territorial expansion, but also increasing our internal skills. We invest in different places, in different countries, in different equipment. [We] acquire specific companies that increase our capacities and insource specific skills and knowhow.”
Backing BEAMIT on this endeavour is Sandvik, who took up a 30% stake in the company in July 2019 with the option to increase its control over time. From a technical standpoint, the investment in BEAMIT gave Sandvik a ‘specialist partner’ with which it could work to help customers develop their application of metal additive manufacturing technology. And as they do so, Sandvik has control over one of Europe’s leading 3D printing service providers with the financial security to be a long-term collaborator.
“Thanks to strong capital injection in the BEAMIT Group, it allows BEAMIT to be unique with this financial strength. It makes BEAMIT secure from a financial point of view,” Scanavini said. “Additive manufacturing is a capital-intensive activity. If you don’t have money, you don’t go. And big OEMs are looking for a partner for new projects that will be on the market in the next 10/20 years. Thanks to Sandvik, BEAMIT can fit this requirement.”
In that timeframe, BEAMIT expects to be pursuing opportunities in the aerospace and defence markets, and potentially automotive too. To address the higher volume demands of industries like automotive, Scanavini says BEAMIT is working with OEMs to make the printing process more sustainable ‘from the point of view of cost’, while the company is also exploring hybrid technologies. Sandvik’s materials development expertise is also set to play a big role in pursuing opportunities, with titanium 6242 being introduced earlier this year and aluminium 2024 and 7050 materials set to follow.
Read more - Stepping on the gas: Sandvik discusses its increasing commitment to metal 3D printing
Meanwhile, the Osprey 2507 superduplex stainless steel co-launched by Sandvik and BEAMIT in April has already been used to develop a reinvented impeller in collaboration with Equinor and Norwegian Eureka Pumps. Several other ongoing projects in the marine sector are also using the material, which Sandvik says is ‘superiorly suitable for highly corrosive seawater and marine environments.’
BEAMIT is now eager to push on. The company recognises that in order to allow and encourage OEMs to utilise 3D printing technology instead of a traditional manufacturing method, they need to innovate. In the optimisation of stainless steel, titanium and aluminium materials; in the development of new printing processes; and in the acquisition of several companies, the BEAMIT Group believes it is doing just that.
“The BEAMIT mission is to be the company that makes additive manufacturing sustainable for mass production,” finished Scanavini. “Additive manufacturing is a sustainable process and digital process, but the cost is a key point. [AM] has strength points related to environmental sustainability, but not financial sustainability. This is the mission of BEAMIT Group and the solution that we see is the ‘one-stop shop’ as a first, and then three or four years in the future, we see a completely automatic and digital factory for additive manufacturing mass production.”
