Addman has purchased Forecast3D. Private equity backed Addman, has previously bought , Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, Castheon, Dinsmore and others to become a major player in metal and polymer Additive Manufacturing. We have podcasts with CEO Joseph Calmese and Jay Dinsmore to give you more insight into the company. So far it looks like Addman is ambitious, growth oriented and very intro assembling the entire manufacturing toolkit while developing high end defense facing capabilities. From refractories to SLA and injection molding and CNC too, the company wants to be a, so far only US based, manufacturing powerhouse that can take on most any task.

Forecast itself was a leading independent polymer service bureau that pioneered MJF and footwear 3D printing before selling to GKN. Automotive and aerospace supplier GKN then integrated it into its GKN Additive unit. The rest of the unit uses DMLS and metal binder jet to produce things like cold plates, copper induction coils and circuit breakers.

It seems like ADDMAN will maintain the Carlsbad California based Forecast 3D operation and brand as well as the California based Dinsmore facility and brand. Forecast had over 60 machines and produced over one million parts annually. The company had 45 machines when it was acquired by GKN in 2019.

ADDMAN CEO Joe Calmese said,

¨Our strategy has always been about scale and capability, We are building the largest additive manufacturing service provider in the market. Designed to support any part, any process, at any stage of the customer’s journey. Bringing Forecast 3D into ADDMAN makes that vision real today, and we will continue to raise the bar for what customers should expect from an advanced manufacturing partner.”

This is another win for ADDMAN owner American Industrial Partners which is building one of the largest service offerings in the US. ADDMAN says that it has over 160 industrial 3D printers at the moment. Calmese continues, saying,

“Reaching this scale matters, but it isn’t the finish line. Our focus is how we use it; where we invest next, how we partner, and how we continue expanding what AM can do. That’s the journey we’re on at ADDMAN.”

Forecast was bought by GKN Powdered Metallurgy in 2019, ADDMAN only got started a year later. The company has been on a mad race for scale since then. GKN meanwhile is on a bit of a retrench. Rollup and restructuring firm Melrose bought the company in 2018 and split off the Powdered Metallurgy business in 2023. Melrose itself was on a madcap run to acquire and restructure much of Britains high tech industry before biting off more than it could chew with GKN. The resulting fallout has covered former subsidiaries with some soot. American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) which sounds like a fake company in a Bugs Bunny cartoon but is actually a $6 billion revenue automotive components manufacturer, bought 51% of GKN Automotive and GKN Powdered Metallurgy a year ago for $1.44 billion. Dowlais, the original demerged combination of Automotive and Powdered Metallurgy will retain 49%. This semi-uncomfortable straddle is strange enough of course but owning a polymer company on the side was perhaps a bit of a stretch for the corporates involved.

The driveshaft business is under assault as well, from Chinese manufacturing on the one had and electric cars on the other hand. Even though Dowlais was a 4.9 billion pound business the purchase price for half of it was less than half the revenue. Its revenues and operating profit were declining and it made a 109 million pound loss in 2024. GKN Automotive also has just 15% of its revenues coming from China while the Powdered Metallurgy side gets 13% of revenues from China, both elements get around 40% of their revenue from the US while operating margins were at 6.8% and 9.1%. And this was before the recent flood of Chinese EV´s hit Europe.

This is especially troubling now given the lack of competitiveness globally for US car brands and the uncertainties around US car manufacturing. While the market may grow slightly locally, new cars have become unaffordable for many and a lot of buying seems to flow from stock market gains. The radical split between the lack of purchasing power of the middle class and the huge asset gains made by the happy few is something that many firms in the US have yet to get their head around. So the sales part of this deal seems more than logical for Dowlais and American Axle.

On the purchasing side this is also more than logical. This gives ADDMAN more scale in polymer LPBF. Now the firm can tackle the largest print runs in the US. Bigger scale deters newer Private Equity firms from market entry and forestalls their growth. More scale can let the firm handle more government contracts and obtain more share of the overall spend on Additive. ADDMAN typically lets its companies prosper by themselves and American Industrial Partners also seems like it leaves companies to their own devices as long as they are disciplined. We were lucky enough to have a great session by ADDMAN and American Industrial Partners at Additive Manufacturing Strategies last year where they explained how they approach M&A and how focusing on customers drives their growth and acquisitions. Listening to COO Deven Suthar, CEO Joseph Calmese and American Industrial Partners´ Danny Davis really gave us all insight in just how ambitious AIP and ADDMAN are and how they plan to win through scale, growth and driving customer success. That really should resonate with the culture at Forecast, which is very ¨can do.¨ Through arming ADDMAN with more resources this acquisition should help them in their quest to become the preeminent Additive Manufacturing service in the US.