6K Additive
As the 6K Additive team readied to fly out to Frankfurt for the annual Formnext jaunt, it announced an expansion to its team and offering through the acquisition of Global Metal Powders.
The deal saw 6K Additive integrate additional powder manufacturing and recycling capabilities, supplementing its pre-existing reuse and production processes powered by its UniMelt technology.
But the company wasn't done there. As 6K Additive arrived in Frankfurt to exhibit many of its powder products, it also revealed it was partnering with Metal Powder Works, who will become a feedstock supplier for copper-based printing alloys.
Amidst what was a busy event for the company, President Frank Roberts spoke to TCT to explain both developments, as well sharing his thoughts on the progress of the additive manufacturing industry.
TCT: Earlier this month, 6K Additive announced the acquisition of Global Metal Powders - can you tell us about the motivation behind this deal?
FR: The meat of it is on predominantly titanium but some of the other niobium, tantalum based alloys, we were partnered with people to create the feedstock. The GMP acquisition, completely vertically integrates and brings that process in house. So, now we can partner with companies that have any type of subtractive scrap, large parts, to turnings and chips and turn into our engineered feedstock, and then ultimately spherical powder. And it also added a couple of product lines. Angular chrome powder was their core product line. So, used in the electronics industry for coatings. It's a very high purity chrome powder. Creating our own feedstock, we now have our own Angular titanium powder that can be used for a bunch of different applications in coating and traditional PM. But ultimately, we've needed to own the supply chain, and create our own feedstock. So, that was really core to why we went after GMP, and they have some technology that does it, I'll say, extremely efficiently. So, really synergistic to our high yield, low energy, with our UniMelt, and the same situation with them in how they create that feedstock.
TCT: Did they have additive customers already?
FR: They did not. I say they didn't. That's only partly true. They had customers using additive. But their products weren't going into the additive stream. So, some of their customers were already our customers, and now we're just selling them multiple products.
TCT: As you bring in a company like that through an acquisition, how easy is it to integrate them into your reuse and recycle processes?
FR: So, operationally, we're pretty good at integration. This was our second acquisition in two years. And so when we evaluate their core business, a lot of it stays relatively the same. So, it's just more business infrastructure that gets integrated and some synergies that were explored, obviously sales team and things like that, engaging the market. When we looked at their core technology, and okay, we need to apply this to creating feedstock for our existing powder business. Really, it was, you have all this equipment, we're going to leave your facility as is, but we're going to take this IP and apply it at our Burgettstown, Pennsylvania location, so that was the focus from that standpoint, because we really want to streamline operation as much as possible, have things flowing through the factory.
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Our PREP facility is up and running now. We call it PREP: powder, revert, evaluation, but that's really the start of the process. So, breaking those materials down, and then they're flowing over right into the powder building. So, integration, a lot of business processes. We have a whole matrix of strategy deployment. So, really focused on, here's the core objective, here's how we deploy the strategy. And so integrate that team immediately, day one, into ours.
TCT: You mentioned the angular powder products that GMP bring with them as you integrate that business – what do those products offer compared to what you already do?
FR: So, for us, the sales team, just adding line items to their their portfolio, some customers are consuming both for two different applications or reasons. So, those are going into more coatings applications, but sometimes on printed parts, sometimes where companies have, I'll say, conventional means of manufacturing, they need to coat with Angular. Now I've got somebody I can sell that to, and then they have a completely separate side of their business, fully additive. So, just adding product lines, there were some synergistic customers. Some of them, they're buying those powders or products for even melt applications, so not really in line with our powder business at all. On the other side, the alloy division, those are all going into melt applications. So, while it's not synergistic to powders, it's still part of who we are as a company.
TCT: On the Metal Powder Works collaboration, what was the thinking behind the MoU?
FR: So we're starting to see a lot of demand, increasing for copper. From our standpoint, we were really good at creating feedstocks for titanium, nickel, stainless. All the refractory metals, but copper was clearly an area that we really didn't have a feedstock solution for. I've known John [Barnes] obviously a long time and really liked the approach that he's taking in terms of creating product in a pretty sustainable way. And so, the core values of MPW mesh well with ours. And he's able to, with very high yield, create the perfect feedstock for us to spheroidise, So, from day one, when he created MPW we had [said] this is going to happen at some point, we've got to figure this out. He needed to mature the technology a little bit. And so now was the right time to pounce, he was ready. We've got our process set, and now the markets calling for the material. So, it's perfect. He’s, for us, a feedstock supplier.
TCT: What are the applications in terms of 3D printed copper that you see today, and what opportunities are there a little bit into the future?
FR: So, it's developing, you walk around and you see, people are finally starting to figure out how to print [copper]. There's a lot of, I'd say, electronics applications, just the conductivity properties in copper fit well, and additive, I think, is well positioned to really tap in, so EV, electrification, I think there's a lot of opportunity there. There's also space exploration, really starting to see some interesting, cool, people figuring out how to how to print and get the right properties out of, let's say, more common copper alloys, not some of these special ones. That's been interesting. So, space, certainly, and even, I'll say, conventional automotive, you can see some of the thermal properties in heat exchangers, those types of things, starting to adopt. It's early, but the interest is growing quickly.
TCT: Do you already offer copper as a commercial product today?
FR: We do but I'd say really limited scale. There's some pure and low alloy copper, but really limited scale. What we're looking to do with John is grow the volume.
TCT: In that scenario, do you wait for the demand to come to you or do you go out and find the opportunities?
FR: I'll say, up until this point, it's been largely some of those opportunities coming to us, not really too aggressive like we've been with other material sets. But with the MPW relationship, we'll really look to leverage. There's some things that we're working on to, I'd say, further help our customer base in terms of their ability to print consistently copper. So, some things we're working on there. We'll start getting really aggressive in 2024 of 'how do we enable market growth?'
TCT: In terms of the commercialisation of metal materials, what feedback are you getting from the market and how might that influence the roadmap going forward?
FR: So, certainly the core Ti, nickel, those will continue to grow. GMP is going to enable a much larger, faster growth for titanium, in particular. On the real development side that we see, because I think it's just because of the unique skill set we have with refractory metals, the engineers out there dreaming up new alloys for specific properties. So, you're starting to really see in and around niobium and tantalum alloys but even tungsten, pure tungsten is certainly a commercialised product for us. But now you're starting to see people ask for some pretty wild alloy variations of tungsten as a base. So, that's certainly for us a lot of discussion here over the last couple of days, and the last six to nine months.
TCT: How are you seeing the market develop in terms of manufacturers investing into additive and then deploying the technology?
FR: I'll say, from an investment standpoint, it's certainly not easy for companies to go out and raise capital and interest rates being what they are. So, it's definitely trying times from that standpoint, but I think what we're seeing in the industry, and you're starting to see, I'll say, some of these OEMs hitting a scale and a maturity level, where serial production is now possible. And that's changing how people are viewing additive, where it's no longer just an R&D tool, prototyping tool, it's 'we can actually get into serial production.' And there's some of these folks in this very hall enabling some really cool things. So, we're seeing demand is continuing to grow, but you're seeing some really, I'll say, large aerospace medical customers now, saying, 'okay, it's time, we're going to make the investment.' And so our goal was to latch on, help them on that journey, and 'hey, you've got revert materials, let's help you close the loop and start the journey together,' instead of, 'let's develop a process and then figure out how to supply it down the road.'
TCT: And as you work with companies on closing the loop with their material – are manufacturers engaging with that idea?
FR: That whole line of thinking has changed. Bruce [Bradshaw, 6K's Chief Marketing Officer] and I were just probably talking last night on our coming out party in 2019. And the idea of we're using revert materials as an input stock, and it was like, 'can that can that work?' Well, everything you have has revert material in it anyway. But it started from a lot of us banging on doors and saying, 'hey, better quality, more sustainable, not more expensive.' So, now, people are not singularly focused, but it is a core focus of these big companies, in terms of sustainability, but also, its cost. They already have the revert, they already own it, and in most cases, it's going out at very low value. So, how do we put that through the 6K process and reclaim and upcycle that value? So, it's changed a lot of massive companies now, looking to put in the value stream and turn it into powder and into part.
