Three months after GE acquired a controlling ownership of German additive manufacturing (AM) company, GE plans to expand the base and number of employees at Concept Laser GmbH headquarters and will increase investment in equipment and materials.
When GE acquired a 75% stake in Concept Laser in mid-December, the company had about 200 employees. GE's number of employees has increased from 200 to 244, and is expected to reach 350 to 400 by the beginning of 2018 (mainly engineers and technicians). Concept Laser is strengthening its field service operations in the United States and Germany, with a focus on investigating and developing investment in production, quality control, development and testing. The expansion of its headquarters in Lichtenfels, Germany will include the development of a new site for manufacturing, product development and testing, and management.
Frank Herzog, President of Concept Laser, said, "In the past few years, Concept Laser has grown rapidly and greatly enhanced the company's innovation capabilities. GE has enabled us to develop infrastructure that brings stronger process support and more to our operations. The supply of resources. Our focus is to improve our machinery and equipment and apply additional resources to improve responsiveness to contingent requirements, while continuously improving our products.
In addition to Lichtenfels headquarters, Concept Laser has an important business in the United States (Grapevine in China), and has a comprehensive network of distributors and agents around the world. Concept Laser designs and manufactures powder-based laser additive manufacturing machines. Its customer cluster is in the aerospace, medical and dental industries, among others. For the past 16 years, Concept Laser has industrialized its technology with its patented LaserCUSING® process. Dedicated to serving the potential use of additive manufacturing technologies in industries such as automotive.
Additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) involves taking digital designs from computer-aided design (CAD) software and using lasers or electron beams as energy sources to melt / sinter together in a layer-by-layer manner. Additive manufacturing parts are generally lighter and more durable than traditional forged parts because they use less welding and machining and they generate much less scrap. Free from traditional manufacturing constraints, additive manufacturing greatly expands engineer design flexibility.
GE is a leading end user and innovator in the field of additive manufacturing. GE has invested approximately 1.5 billion US dollars in the development of additive manufacturing technology at the GE Global Research Center (GRC), conducted research on additive manufacturing in six GE companies at the same time, created new service applications within the company, and Obtained 346 patents in the manufacturing process.
Concept Laser is also part of the GE Additive Technology Center (ATC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, focusing on how to use AM to mass-produce components for industrial products.
GE Additive is part of GE (NYSE: GE), a global digital industry company, led by David Joyce, vice chairman and CEO of GE Airlines, an operating unit of GE Airlines, a world-leading jet engine, parts and Commercial and military aircraft integrated systems supplier.