FIT AG to Invest €20 Million in Additive Manufacturing Facility
July 31, 2015
FIT Group, based in Lupburg, Germany, has announced that it is investing €20 million in a new purpose built facility for high volume Additive Manufacturing, as well as a new office building. The new plant will go live at the start of 2016 and, states that the company, will become the first facility entirely designed for high volume Additive Manufacturing.
The company’s manufacturing concept, named FAB@FIT, allows it to deploy its know-how in high volume Additive Manufacturing at its clients. “We are about to enter a new era of industrial production, and with our new factory we intend to make a major contribution to this trend. The successful development of the new standard format 3MF for industrial print data by Microsoft and FIT has proved to be a good start,” explained Alexander Oster, CTO of the FIT Group.
By concentrating on additive technologies, FIT Group has developed a unique portfolio of production techniques which has established itself in the marketplace. Thanks to the increasing demand for additively manufactured parts such as medical implants and devices, as well as components for motorsports, aviation and aerospace, FIT has doubled production capacities during the last 12 months.
“Having bought nine laser melting systems during the last year, we are now going to order three additional big multi-laser melting machines as well as two further electron beam melting machines. The more important milestone is, however, to combine these technologies in an integrated purpose built additive factory with reliable processes, minimising the technology risks. This is what qualifies us as the industrial partner to implement new manufacturing concepts with customers worldwide,” stated Carl Fruth, CEO of the FIT Group.
“Our new factory is a model plant and has a modular structure. This will serve as a master concept for commissioning industrial Additive Manufacturing close to our customers. By copying the entire production process of an efficiently operating Additive Design and Manufacturing (ADM) plant, manufacturing costs will be reduced and quality of the parts improved. Thus, the local concept FAB@FIT will turn into a successful international FAB@X,” Fruth added.
FIT AG is a leading German provider of rapid prototyping services, additive design and manufacturing (“ADM”) and 3D printing software via its subsidiaries FIT Prototyping GmbH, FIT Production GmbH and netfabb GmbH. Group revenue in 2014 was €16.8 million, an increase of 40% versus the previous year, with netfabb contributing €3.8 million (up 370%). FIT employs around 190 people, most of them at the company’s headquarters in Lupburg, Germany. The FIT Group operates two further subsidiaries, FIT Nord GmbH near Hamburg, Germany, and FIT West Corp. in Santa Clara, CA, USA.
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