Nano Dimension’s acquisition of Markforged has clearly been the most attention-grabbing headline for the latter company in 2024, and indeed one of the most-watched developments in the additive manufacturing (AM) industry overall this year. About a month before the deal’s announcement, Markforged unveiled a product that provides some key insight into why the company was an attractive target for buyers.

At the end of August, Markforged launched the Metal Kit for the FX10 composite printer, a release that epitomizes Markforged’s trajectory over the last couple of years. Specifically, the Metal Kit demonstrates how Markforged has zoomed in its focus on fixing trouble spots that pop up on the factory floor.

At the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago (September 9-14), I spoke with Tripp Burd, Markforged’s Director of New Platforms, about how the Metal Kit fits into Markforged’s general strategy. The first thing I wanted to know was how the FX10 with the Metal Kit stacks up against the company’s signature Metal X printer, first unveiled in 2017:

“The FX10 is our latest generation printer, so with the Metal Kit it’s two generations ahead of the Metal X in terms of all the developments that have gone into it: sensors, build accuracy, repeatability, reliability,” Burd began. “The counterpoint to that is that the Metal X has been in the field being tested and continually iterated and developed and works with a much wider suite of materials. However, as this builds out, as we continue to develop and fine-tune more software and materials for the Metal Kit, there’s no reason why it won’t have the same consistent track record as the Metal X in the future.”

Obviously, another advantage to the Metal Kit is that it’s far cheaper for companies to buy an adaptor kit than it is to buy an additional printer. That gives Markforged an edge with all the customers that may be interested in developing applications with metal AM, but not yet interested enough to commit to an additional system.

Along those lines, Markforged’s development of the Metal Kit — and its emphasis on the factory floor, generally — is a direct response to where the company’s user-base has seen the most success in terms of ROI:

“If you go to an automotive plant that has a Markforged printer in-house, they’re not at the point yet where they’re making millions of cars that have Markforged parts on them,” explained Burd. “But all of the components in the factory itself, all the grippers, arms, brackets, everything that’s involved in the process of making cars — that’s where you’ll find the best fits for AM. And it’s important to point out, this isn’t in a print lab in a separate building, this is in the tool room with maintenance workers right there on the spot maintaining or optimizing the factory line.

That’s possible because we’ve automated so much of the knowledge inherent in the underlying processes. So an engineer working for one of our customers doesn’t need to be an expert in extrusion settings and layer heights and all that. That enables the requisite knowledge to spread at every factory where there’s a Markforged printer, where it would be unrealistic for every shift at every plant to have a print expert on hand.”

Burd elaborated on his point regarding the scale of output that AM is currently the best fit for:

“In a lot of cases, the way that 3D printers are used in real-world settings is like a Swiss Army knife. If you just had to turn out metal parts all day long, for instance, there are other technologies. But to print a variety of reinforced composites and polymers, with a couple of metal parts thrown in there, the Metal Kit is perfect for that. For situations where the cost per part is high, where the complexity and mix of parts is high and the volume is low, all those attributes fit well with AM.”

Given his experience concerning where AM is most compatible with general industry, I asked Burd what he thinks the industry can do to increase adoption rates:

“The best way to increase the adoption of AM is to widen the addressability,” he said. “And to do that, you need engineers with problems. You need to equip them with a tool that allows them to solve the problems that they’re facing day to day, quickly and cost effectively. 3D printing is an excellent tool, but like any tool it’s only as useful as the person who’s applying it for a specific job. So a combination of increasing skill-sets, training, and availability of technology is the best way to drive new users, drive new use-cases, and push the technology further and further into highly critical, highly valuable applications.”

Finally, Burd noted one of the areas of industry that he sees as most attractive for AM’s next phase:

“When you look at the impact of digital manufacturing, the most interesting thing to consider as the relevant technologies continue to expand is what they can do for digital inventory and supply chains, and I think that’s the next stage,” Burd told me. “Once the design work is done with a controlled process in a repeatable piece of equipment, that’s when you can truly have that part digitally available, on-demand, anywhere in the world. That’s the avenue for part-level performance to take hold in solving company-wide, and eventually, even globally-encompassing problems.”

With Markforged, then, Nano Dimension gets in on the most practical area of the AM industry. This is essentially the area farthest from its own existing wheelhouse, which is deep tech R&D.

Adding those two areas together should give the combined companies an intriguing vantage point for watching the industry’s progress unfold, and a foot in two entirely separate sources of revenue going forward. If the two companies can figure out how to fruitfully learn from one another, the new products and processes that result will be quite unique.

Images courtesy of Markforged