Sigma Labs Inc (SASI)

[MDuffy]

Summary of Greg Morris' talk-Florence, KY

After telling a bit about his personal story (history of Morris Tech, what Additive is, how they helped pioneer its use...), he then talked about how GE has been using Additive in their business. My notes are kind of circular (I only had one sheet so wrote in any empty space I could find) so I apologize if some points are out of order.)

Key points:
1. GE is integrating Additive Manufacturing throughout ALL branches of GE

2. Currently, AM has been used on high pressure turbine blades, fuel swirlers, and the nozzles. He noted that they don't want to use additive in parts designed for traditional methods- rather, they redesign parts specifically for additive to make them better, more accurate, and cheaper.

3. On their Land-Based Gas Turbines, Additive has enabled GE to actually realize (past tense-done deal) production of 90 parts in 3 months instead of 12. You should note that Sigma had an agreement with "a Fortune 100" company for exactly this purpose: (http://sigmalabsinc.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=80&cntnt01origid=77&cntnt01returnid=59)

4. On the slide with their timeline, In Process Monitoring and Control was listed under 2014 (!!!) They also had a picture of the PrintRite 3D module under the heading "Inspection." ( FYI-I looked at the image again of Printrite yesterday, and am upping my certainty to 99.99 %… If you look on Sigma's data-sheet, it's pretty distinct, so unless some other company is using the exact same shape monitoring system, the odds are good.)

5. There is a major opportunity for new alloy creation, Ti64, CoCr, and TiAl were listed as main superalloys, along with 12 others that weren't highlighted. Mark Cola has talked about the same thing- someone more motivated than me can find the PR.

6. Rolls Royce and Pratt Whitney are definitely implementing Additive Manufacturing. Morris thinks GE has a slight head start, but probably not by much. [Please note that Vivek Dave worked for Pratt Whitney so that's a nice foot in the door.]

7. Potential Market Morris said that the total global manufacturing output is 10.5 Trillion dollars. Currently, additive manufacturing is only 2.2 Billion of that… which is a fraction of a percent. He said, let's say in the next couple years Additive reaches just 1% of Global output (which is extremely conservative)- that would be 100 Billion! He also said that's why some of the "early adopters" (DDD, SSYS, EXONE, ARCAM) trade at ridiculous multiples- it's partly hype, but mostly based on potential that in this case is very achievable.

8. Ge's current 3D printers being used are as follows:
7 SLA
8 Arcam
1 Polyjet
1 FDM
15 EOS
1 C-L
2 SLM
and… one more company that I missed.

In addition, they will be adding 50 more machines to the plant in Lafayette, IN.

9. One thing I will note- he described the fuel nozzle as a "multi-hundred dollar part" (so click-charge wouldn't be that high…) however, he also said that because they are saving so much money (5x increase in durability, 25% weight reduction) each pound saved equates to hundreds of thousands if not millions of savings over an engine's lifetime. He said they are working on saving 500-1000 lbs on an 8000 lb engine… next in line to be additively manufactured are all the little parts within the engine (underneath that smooth cylinder with the turbine is apparently a big mess). He described the push for optimization as "trying to eliminate a lot of the spaghetti" while showing a cross section of the engine with tubes and hoses all over the place. There are TONS of little pieces and parts that can be printed using AM.

10. He also mentioned that normally with traditional processes there is 90% waste (watch a video of CNC, you'll see what I mean.) However, he emphasized that rather than eliminating CNC, Additive would increase the importance of it, because while all these parts are 'near net shape' they still need finishing. Mark Cola said basically the same thing in one of his talks- how parts would need only minimal machining with the assistance of PrintRite3D.


So, all in all I would say that Sigma Labs is in a pretty good spot. Hearing about the size of the market was certainly encouraging, as well as actually seeing the image of PrintRite on the slide show. I was glad we went. My husband has been invited up Wed. to meet with the bosses at one of the manufacturers' we met and tour the plant, so hopefully our primary objective will be met too :) Thanks for the heads up!!!