AL3’s first portable 3D printing system now online at a US Navy facility

Our metal 3D printing Investment AML3D (ASX: AL3) now has one of its portable printing systems installed in the US Navy’s Additive manufacturing Centre of Excellence.

The system was installed as part of AL3’s partnership with Austal USA (a part of the $1.8BN Listed Austal group).

Austal actually runs the US Navy’s Additive manufacturing Centre of Excellence for the US Navy.

AL3’s small portable system is the 3rd system installed in that facility.

The reason we liked today’s news was because it puts one of AL3’s most flexible/adaptible systems on display inside a US Navy facility - for a big range of potential customers to see.

We think that one of the major advantages of additive manufacturing (3D Metal printing) is that it can be deployed on site at the point of need so parts can be produced on demand by customers in remote locations.

AL3’s small portable system is able to be pre-prepared so that it can be reinstalled on site in as little as 1-2 days as opposed to ~2-3 weeks for a fixed system.

(imagine if parts need to be produced on the frontline of a war - an AL3 system can do it on site, on demand)

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AL3 already has a US letter of Intent that claims 100 of these types of systems will be required (which we covered here)

In recent weeks AL3 has secured 2 large orders:

• A $9.9M order with the USA’s largest shipbuilder with a subsidiary of $18BN Huntington Ingalls Industries (which we covered here)
  
• Then a week later followed that up with a $2.3M order of US submarine parts for BlueForge Alliance, these are for parts no longer manufactured (which we covered here).
  

So AL3 is steadily making inroads with increasing sales into the US military including large and renowned customers.

We also saw in the quarterly that ALS has appointed the former Director of Additive Manufacturing for the US Navy, Larissa Smith.

(source)

So on the back of that we would expect that AL3 will be having more conversations with potential customers over coming weeks and months.

So now we wait to see if the orders begin to become more frequent.

With today’s news, AL3 can show potential customers that parts can be produced from portable flexible systems that can be shipped easily in a shipping container and installed in a couple of days.

Hopefully that opens AL3 up to a wider range of customers from inside the US military industrial complex.

What we want to see next from AL3

More US Navy system sales 🔄

With 100 systems forecast across the Marine Industrial Base and only a handful deployed so far, the pipeline from HII alone may become substantial.

We want to see more orders from the six US naval base companies named in the Navy's LOI. (source)

US facility expansion 🔄

AL3 is investing $12M to expand its Ohio production capabilities which is required to keep up with its growing sales.

The additional four systems ordered by Newport News systems will ship from its Ohio US technology center.

UK and European market entry 🔲

AL3's CEO has flagged early-stage demand in their UK and European markets and we think that NATO's 5% GDP defence spending target could create a new wave of opportunity.

Back in April last year AL3 announced it had started alloy testing with BAE Systems (capped at 123BN who are a multinational aerospace, arms and information security company), so we are hoping successful testing leads to sales into the UK/EU…

Ultimately, we want to see AL3 make a first sale into Europe or the UK.

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