Since its establishment in 2006, SLM Solutions Group AG, headquartered in Lubeck, has been a solid leader in the additive manufacturing industry, especially in the field of industrial metal 3D printing. As the company name indicates, SLM Solutions specializes in laser selective melting technology and offers a wide range of metal additive manufacturing system products, including SLM®125, SLM®280 production series, SLM®280 2.0, SLM®500 and SLM®800.
Today, SLM Solutions has entered the global industries including aviation, automotive, energy, mold, medical and dental, and has more than 400 employees in Germany, China, Austria, France, Italy, USA, Singapore, Russia and India .
In March 2019, SLM Solutions announced a leadership change to include General Electric veteran Meddah Hadjar on the executive board and appoint him as the company's new CEO. Meddah Hadjar officially became CEO on May 1. He has a deep background in product manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and of course, additive manufacturing. Interestingly, the former general manager of the laser product business of GE Additives (for two years) has an aerospace background, which is one of the main target industries of SLM Solutions and the main benefit industry of metal additive manufacturing technology.
In an interview with 3dpbm, Meddah Hadjar talked about his new position at SLM Solutions and how the aerospace industry and applications are affecting the company's continued development of metal additive manufacturing.
3dpbm: Mr. Meddah Hadjar, could you introduce your background?
Meddah Hadjar: Before joining SLM Solutions, I worked at GE for more than 20 years and played many different roles. Most of the time I worked in the general aviation department, but also worked for the oil, gas and power departments, and later served as general Head of the laser business at Additives.
So far, I have been working for SLM Solutions for almost two months and it was a wonderful journey. I'm exploring the complete technical overview and production capabilities of SLM Solutions. We are now working on a plan to get the company back where we want it to be.
3dpbm: How will your experience at GE Additives help you in your new role?
Meddah Hadjar: GE has been in contact with metal additive manufacturing for a long time and was the first beneficiary of additive manufacturing technology, so I had a certain understanding of additive technology before joining the additive manufacturing department. The two years I spent there have really helped me to see various applications and technologies in this industry, and understand the competitive challenges of the additive market and the direction of technology development, and know what needs to be improved to enable additive manufacturing technology. Go mainstream and become popular.
I already know where the technology is, where the industry is, and more importantly, because of my experience in the aviation industry, I know who the majority of users are. So coming to SLM Solutions is a natural change.
3dpbm: Are there any significant differences between the two companies?
Meddah Hadjar: SLM Solutions is a public company, so there are differences in how we invest in our products and focus on major investors. And GE Additives is a non-listed company that belongs to the General Electric Group, so their operations are very different.
From a technology and development perspective, there are also differences between the two. We see different challenges because the development teams of these technologies focus on different roadmaps, but it is undoubtedly exciting to witness the next research and development of SLM Solutions.
I am happy to say that I am very satisfied with the technology and development of SLM Solutions.
3dpbm: What is your main goal as CEO of SLM Solutions?
Meddah Hadjar: For the past two weeks, I have been meeting with investors in Frankfurt, London and the United States. Everyone has high expectations and enthusiasm for the company's goals. We will discuss this issue further in August. Now we are very focused on operating the company in different ways, managing the company with discipline and responsibility, and trying to speed up our product launch.
3dpbm: How important is the aerospace industry to SLM Solutions' business?
Meddah Hadjar: My background is in the aerospace industry. My bachelor's and master's degrees are also in aerospace. I started working at General Electric Airlines, then called the General Aviation Engine Department. Relatively speaking, I am biased in aviation because I love aviation and know it well. Additive manufacturing is currently the main technology that helps the aerospace industry overcome major challenges in terms of performance, weight and cost. Traditional manufacturing has many restrictions, which restrict the development of the aerospace industry, and the cost for enterprises is very high. SLM Solutions pays great attention to this market because it is very important: this is the first industry to benefit from additive manufacturing. At the same time, the development of additive manufacturing will also promote the significant growth of the industry, which is a win-win situation.
3dpbm: Can you elaborate on how SLM Solutions' technology meets the stringent requirements of the aerospace industry?
Meddah Hadjar: For us, it is critical to manufacture parts for our customers that meet industry requirements. These requirements include material properties, fatigue performance, stress, and the overall quality of the final part. Taking a step back, the components manufactured by additive technology are still at least comparable to existing components.
If we look at the technology on the market today, we produce parts using a multi-laser configuration-either two or four. In both cases, our equipment can produce higher quality parts than equipment with only one laser of the same type. This enables our equipment to produce parts at higher productivity and lower cost than single laser system equipment.
I think this is a growing trend: Multi-laser printing is the key to the development and wide application of this technology. For us, further improving our printing speeds and device reliability is an important requirement today.
3dpbm: Which SLM system is most popular in aerospace applications?
Meddah Hadjar: In today's industry, SLM®500 is a leader in the aerospace industry. Our competitors' equipment also has other applications in the aerospace field, but from a productivity perspective, our SLM®500 system can print parts using four lasers, which gives us a great advantage.
I don't see any other competitors doing this in this area. And, as we recently announced, Rolls-Royce has just purchased the SLM®500 four-laser system, which will be used to explore aerospace applications.
3dpbm: In the aerospace sector, which area is your most interested. For example: aerospace, civil aviation, commercial aviation, defense?
Meddah Hadjar: For us, we are interested in all these areas, but they have different scale requirements. For example, if you look at civil aviation and commercial aviation, they are both attractive from a volume and size perspective. If you look at defense or space applications, this will be another aspect, the size requirements will be relatively low, but SLM technology has advantages in terms of design applicability and cost reduction. You have also seen that SLM technology can be adopted faster in civil aviation, aerospace and defense.
3dpbm: What are the main challenges currently facing the needs of the aerospace industry?
Meddah Hadjar: To better assist our customers, we—that is, the additive manufacturing industry—much need to improve our equipment to meet a very stringent industry requirement. I mean, our equipment needs a certain degree of reliability, and it has a higher degree of industrialization than the machines on the market today.
Another thing that can help the aerospace industry meet the challenge is to provide more productive, larger printing platforms. The forming size you see in the additive manufacturing industry today restricts its application in the aerospace industry, so this is a challenge for us to solve this by producing equipment with larger processing platforms and higher productivity problem.
3dpbm: What do you think of the development prospects of additive manufacturing in aviation in ten years?
Meddah Hadjar: This is a very interesting technology that is developing very quickly, but I think it is important not to set wrong expectations. I think we will see this market continue to grow, but I think the expectations for this market outlook are still controversial.
How we look at this technology will depend on how far we can advance it. In general, we want to see more comprehensive values-vertical and horizontal-we are focusing on software, materials, multi-laser power, larger build platforms, artificial intelligence sensors … and much more to do.
The technology is still young and requires a lot of work to fully automate the industry. In general, what I want to say is that within 10 years, our vision is to have a fully automated, fully autonomous industry.