Aurora Labs announced an important government order.
The Australian company has been developing a high-volume metal 3D printing process for several years. Their goal is to achieve 1000kg metal prints in a single day, and they’ve been making regular progress towards that goal.
If achieved, their system would unlock several industrial 3D printing applications. One that they’ve talked about in the past is mining. Mining takes place in remote areas where part breakdowns can be catastrophically expensive. The faster the mine can restart, the better. If there was a 3D printer onsite that could near-instantly produce the required replacement metal parts there may be huge savings.
There are similar potential applications for their technology. However, up to now it’s mostly been internal demonstrations.
Now they’ve secured a contract with the Australian Department of Defence. The ADoD has proceeded with a print service purchase order. The nature of the contract is for Aurora Labs to provide experimental spare parts on demand.
Aurora Labs explains:
“A3D will be supplying the print production specialty componentry over the coming months, produced by its specialised industrial print services at its Canning Vale, WA headquarters.
This is a first step for the Company with the project entailing specialist requirements which are well matched to the company’s deep knowledge of materials and the metal printing processs for laser powder bed fusion.”
Note, however, that the contract is initially for only AU$50K, a very small amount of money that likely corresponds to only a handful parts. It’s likely that Aurora Labs believes there could be additional orders to come after the client becomes accustomed to the service. They explain:
“The purchase order valued at $49,400 is viewed by A3D as an entry point into a larger market where the Company has been focusing its business development efforts over the last 18 months.”
This is a small, but quite positive development for the company. Their technology is quite unique and should be scalable for the intended applications. It may be that the company’s valuation could jump a bit as a result of this announcement, and we’ll be tracking that on our weekly 3D print company leaderboard on Sunday.
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