Rapid Ready Roundup: Voxeljet IPO, GE, NAMII, and Horseshoes

In the course of my diligent efforts to keep you good people up to date on the state of additive manufacturing (AM), I come across many interesting news items. I’ll gather them up every so often and present them in a Rapid Ready Roundup (like this one). You can find the last Roundup here.

We’ll start today’s Roundup with money matters. Voxeljet hopes to raise approximately $91 million by offering 6.5 million shares with its IPO. Shares are expected to be offered at a price of between $13 to $15 a share, giving the company a market value of around $309 million. 

As part of the IPO, Voxeljet announced it earned $276,000 on $11.3 million in sales for the 2012 fiscal year. Revenues grew by 20% from the previous fiscal year. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “VJET.”

Moving on, if you’ve been wondering about GE’s views on AM, Christine Furtoss, the company’s global technology director for manufacturing and materials technology, has written a treatise on the subject. In it she writes that GE expects to have over 100,000 AM-built parts in service by 2020, and expounds on the numerous benefits of 3D printing.

“Additive technologies give us the ability to develop advanced materials concurrently with design. This is radically changing how manufacturing is done. It no longer has to be a sequential process where you wait for the design to be completed before determining your material selection and manufacturing approach. It will be a non-linear world that is more flexible and moves at faster speeds. For example, if you are not happy with the design of a part, tools exist to change the parameters of your CAD model and reprint it. With conventional manufacturing, that flexibility and ease of performing iteration after iteration just doesn’t exist.” 

Next up, NAMII and the ASTM have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of ASTM standards in the area of additive manufacturing. The memorandum puts down in writing that standards for additive manufacturing will be developed by ASTM International Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies. NAMII will assist the ASTM by providing technical expertise and content for standards development.

“A strong connection between research and the standards community is critical to efficient and effective standards development, especially for emerging industry areas,” said Katharine Morgan, vice president, technical committee operations, ASTM International. “ASTM International is enthusiastic about the opportunities that the MOU with NAMII will offer Committee F42 as it develops standards to transition additive manufacturing technologies to the marketplace.” 

Last for today, horses may be getting some swanky new shoes courtesy of 3D printing. Scientists at CSIRO have designed and 3D printed a set of titanium horseshoes for a Melbourne race horse. The shoes were made by scanning the hooves of the horse to ensure a perfect fit. Most racing horseshoes are made of aluminum to reduce weight, but the titanium shoes weigh even less, which could give the horse an advantage.

“Any extra weight in the horseshoe will slow the horse down. These titanium shoes could take up to half of the weight off a traditional aluminium shoe, which means a horse could travel at new speeds, said John Moloney, the horse’s trainer. “Naturally, we’re very excited at the prospect of improved performance from these shoes.”

Below you’ll find a video demonstration of the support for AM to be found in Windows 8.1.

Sources: NASDAQ, Ideas Lab, ASTM, CSIRO