Leader in industrial 3D-printing technology increases service responsiveness and application expertise for North American customers

NOVI, Mich. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 3, 2014 — EOS, the technology and market leader for design-driven industrial 3D printing, announces the integration of Advanced Laser Materials (ALM; Temple, Tex.) and Integra (Round Rock, Tex.)—a strategic development that is already strengthening service and application offerings in response to the continued growth and evolution of their North American customer base.

This decision expands total service capacity in North America for EOS systems and positions service assets closer to customers to provide the high level of service responsiveness needed for industrial manufacturing. Furthermore, the integration offers development support locally in North America, enabling the company to efficiently partner with customers to create customized system, material, and process solutions and quickly bring new manufacturing applications to market.

“Business is growing at a fantastic rate in part because our technology is allowing our customers to shift from prototyping into end-use manufacturing,” says Donald Vanelli, newly appointed president and COO of EOS of North America, Inc. “There are laser-sintered components in flight in aircraft as well as FDA-approved implants in the human body, for example. This speaks to why we are broadening our organization in response to the evolving manufacturing needs of our customers in areas such as standardizing and tightly controlling production, assuring material, process, and product quality, and ramping up throughput cost-effectively. Overall, the reorganization promotes the unification of products and prices, simplifying sales and service for our current and future customer base.”

While the three organizations have worked together for more than a decade, the reorganization now also consolidates a central management team, drawing on experience from all areas while maintaining their multiple operational locations to offer expertise in existing specialties.

The reorganization was in part orchestrated by Bruce Thornton, former chairman of ALM and newly appointed chairman of EOS of North America, Inc. Thornton, with over 30 years of experience executing strategic growth development for various organizations, will oversee the integration and overall strategy.

Dr. Hans J. Langer, CEO EOS Group, is steering the strategic direction of EOS. With over 500 employees, customers in more than 50 countries and close to 1,500 systems installations worldwide, EOS is focusing on innovation and quality as well as customer orientation. “Globalization is changing us into a company where customer proximity and local value add are critical success factors to best serving our local markets. Integrating all our activities in one North American entity will allow us to better support U.S. customers,” says Langer.

EOS is celebrating its 25th anniversary and opened North America operations in 2001. Integra was founded in 2002, and ALM in 2004. EOS provides laser-sintering systems, materials and application consulting for industrial applications, Integra offers highly seasoned field service engineers to the AM industry, and ALM develops and offers a wide range of commodity and engineered materials for AM.

Overall, the alignment creates a single company with years of laser-sintering knowledge from different perspectives. “We’ve worked with each other practically from our inception, and we understand how to unite our talents and experience to offer customers a one-stop shop of everything they need for industrial 3D-printed applications,” says Andrew Snow, promoted to senior vice president of EOS of North America, Inc.

Their new field service initiative, now spearheaded by Integra’s Lance Shanklin, vice president of applications and development, and Mike Conner, vice president of service, will speed response time, increase uptime, and provide the highest levels of expertise to customers.

About Advanced Laser Materials, LLC (ALM)
Advanced Laser Materials (ALM) is a Texas-based company that consults, researches, develops, and manufactures engineered and customized materials for use in laser Additive Manufacturing processes. The company maintains in-house analysis and development laboratories, manufactures custom polymer materials, and provides extensive quality control data on its products. For more information visit www.alm-llc.com.

About Integra
Integra has more than a decade of technical experience in Additive Manufacturing. Headquartered in Texas with a nationwide network of employees, the company offers not only service and applications support, but also standard and custom equipment upgrades and training. For more information visit www.integra-support.com.

About EOS
EOS is the technology and market leader for design-driven, integrated industrial 3D printing solutions, an Additive Manufacturing process. EOS offers a modular solution portfolio including systems, software, materials and material development as well as services (maintenance, training, specific application consulting and support). As an industrial manufacturing process it allows the fast and flexible production of high-end parts based on 3D CAD data at a repeatable industry level of quality. As a disruptive technology it paves the way for a paradigm shift in product design and manufacturing. It accelerates product development, offers freedom of design, optimizes part structures, and enables lattice structures as well as functional integration. As such, it creates significant competitive advantages for its customers. For more information visit www.eos.info .