Indo-MIM and Desktop Metal Set Up Partnership to Boost Adoption of Metal 3D Printing

Desktop Metal has announced today a strategic partnership with Indo-MIM, a large supplier of metal injection molding (MIM) precision-engineered products with over 100 million metal parts produced annually for global original equipment manufacturers. Together, Desktop Metal and Indo-MIM will offer solutions to enable companies around the world to design and produce metal additively manufactured parts at scale and shorten time to market.

Indo-MIM will draw upon its expertise in design, tooling, sintering, materials and its full range of finishing and assembly operations, to deliver precision metal 3D printed parts to companies spanning the automotive, aerospace, medical, industrial machinery industries and more. As a strategic partner, Indo-MIM will become a full-service manufacturing partner for Desktop Metal, providing companies looking for a wide range of mass production with quantities of high-quality metal parts, ranging from tens of thousands to 1 million.

Indo-MIM will also offer customers consulting services around downstream manufacturing and finishing processes key to going to production with metal additive manufacturing.

“This is a major step forward in the progress of additive manufacturing,” says Krishna Chivukula, Jr., CEO of Indo-MIM. “We are excited to partner with Desktop Metal to bring metal additive manufacturing closer to those companies looking to achieve the speed, cost, and quality benefits to their businesses. With the Production System now joining our state-of-the-art factories, we will be fully integrated to provide customers with a one-stop resource for the manufacturing of complex precision components and sub-assemblies with additive manufacturing.”

Powered by Single Pass Jetting technology, the Production System is a metal 3D printing system for mass production. The Production System, which is designed to print a broad range of alloys, including reactive metals such as titanium and aluminum, enables the use of metal powders that are 80% lower cost than laser powder bed fusion metals, delivering parts at 1/20th the cost. Designed around the MIM chemistry and powder supply chain, the Production System allows access to a large and established ecosystem of low-cost, high-quality alloys with a mature supply chain and well-studied controls.

“The synergies of our companies are profound—both Desktop Metal and Indo-MIM are deeply rooted in MIM technology and we share an unbridled commitment to accelerate the availability of industrial additive manufacturing technologies,” says Ric Fulop, CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal. “This collaboration with Indo-MIM will help deliver the power and promise of our Production System to companies with diverse manufacturing needs and to shift the paradigm from prototyping to include full scale metal manufacturing.”

Indo-MIM will install the Production System in its San Antonio, TX, factory this summer and begin working with customers as early as fall 2019.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.