AM Craft’s Aviation 3D Printing Network Expands with alphacam

AM Craft is a Latvian 3D printing company that produces polymer parts for commercial aviation. As an EASA-authorized Part 21G aviation supplier, AM Craft has received investment from Stratasys and a contract from Finnair to manufacture interior components. The company uses Stratasys 3D printers to design and produce these components. Operating in the highly regulated aviation industry is challenging, but long-term success can be lucrative. AM Craft already handles production in Latvia, Singapore, and Dubai. To further expand their global network, they have now partnered with alphacam.

The well-regarded German firm will partner with AM Craft and open a Hamburg office. Hamburg is a significant hub for aviation, home to the DLR, Diehl Aviation, Lufthansa Technik, and many other industry leaders. The city also hosts an Airbus-owned plant and airport combo. This site, an Airbus MRO hub with 15,000 employees, assembles many Airbus fuselages and serves as the final assembly hub for numerous Airbus planes. If you want to be anywhere in aviation, Hamburg is one of the top locations. For alphacam, this move means they will build a new office in Hamburg, adding to their existing sites in Vienna, Winterthur, and Schondorf.

“We have proudly supported the aerospace industry for many years. We’re qualified to print flight parts for several aviation OEMs and have delivered thousands of parts. Yet, additive manufacturing adoption in aviation is only at the beginning and we see tremendous opportunity to further accelerate our business growth in this market with the innovative approach brought by AM Craft. Airlines and MROs are looking for install-ready parts with a Form 1 airworthiness certificate and AM Craft brings that capability to alphacam,” said alphacam CEO Michael Junghanß.

“It is our strategy to bring certified additive manufacturing to our customer’s point of need. Hamburg, Germany, is a key hub for commercial aviation maintenance, and it’s important for AM Craft to be in Hamburg to support our customers. There is no better partner for us in Germany than alphacam. Our partnership will benefit from their long history in the German market and their deep experience with additive manufacturing in a production environment,” said AM Craft CEO Didzis Dejus.

The two companies will work together to obtain EASA Part 21G Production Organization Approval (POA) for alphacam sites. Approval will be sought for Hamburg and alphacam’s main site in Schondorf. For Germany and Western Europe, alphacam will produce all client parts. Along with the Latvian AM Craft site, Paradigm 3D in Dubai, and the Singapore site, a joint venture between Stratasys and Singapore Airlines’ SIA Engineering, the network is already truly global. A southern European site in Getafe or Toulouse and later U.S. sites may follow. For now, the network has 20 machines, which is not a lot, but the strategy is impressive.

First, the firm does the heavy lifting on certification and training, spending a lot of time filling out forms. Later, they must provide proof points and win over customers worldwide. Now, the firm is rolling out a global network while verifying, certifying, and approving a library of parts that is always expanding. These parts range from overhead bin panels to seat components and overhead panels. As this parts library grows, AM Craft becomes more available to new customers and new parts. The more expansive their library, the more efficiently they can add parts. The better they add parts, the lower the cost of adding new ones. The quicker they do this, the more responsive and cost-effective they become. This makes the network more attractive. At some point, for a group of polymer interior components, AM Craft will be the lowest-cost supplier globally. I love this strategy and believe it can be applied to many other product groups beyond AM Craft.