The Public Arena: EOS Government Relations Manager on Why the Company is All in on Reshoring 3D Printing

“Only something like one to five percent of metal AM customers are ready for automation,” explained Walker. “But should we sit back and wait until 50 percent of them are ready before we start to take action? The problem there is that, so far, there’s still probably not a business case for us to do it. That, then, would be a great example of a worthwhile project for the government to support: get automation in the AM industry going at a larger scale.

“Maybe some of the service providers aren’t sure on the ROI, so that’s where things like grant money or specific initiatives to accelerate adoption come in handy. Government organizations already excel at those sorts of objectives when it comes to qualifying parts.

“America Makes and the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), for instance, are running something called Delta Qual, which reduces the cost of qualifying parts, thereby reducing barriers to entry. So, in the future, if the Air Force wants to replace a casted or forged part with a part made with AM, it’s going to be more cost-efficient for manufacturing enterprises to do so. That will make it easier for industrial metal powder bed customers to do Air Force work. I think that’s a very instructive example of the government being proactive with the money it spends, on a specific barrier to adoption, that is making it easier to 3D print parts in the US in the long run.”

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