The manufacturing sector is made up of clusters: “geographic concentrations of interconnected companies” that both cooperate and compete with each other. Of course, this is true about any sector in the economy, but because of the strict physical limitations that define manufacturing output, clusters tend to have an outsized importance in the world of manufacturing.

That’s one of the primary reasons why there’s so much urgency surrounding efforts to reshore, and it’s why additive manufacturing (AM) companies are so discerning about how they make their decisions to expand their physical footprints. This explains why Roboze made the sound decision to open its U.S. aerospace and defense headquarters in El Segundo, California, a move that the Italian-U.S. company just announced this week.

El Segundo brands itself as “Aerospace Capital of the World“, and a solid case could be made for giving the Southern Californian city that title, with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and countless other aerospace and defense companies maintaining a presence there. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Business Journal, “Half of all vehicles and satellites currently in space are manufactured in El Segundo.”

It’s worth mentioning that Roboze already has a U.S. headquarters in Houston, Texas, which the company opened in 2021. As an enterprise that’s largely built on the premise of enabling the replacement of metal components with parts made from ultra-strong polymers, Roboze now has U.S.  bases of operations near the aortas of two of its largest target markets, energy and aerospace/defense.

Roboze’s new site.

In a press release about Roboze’s opening of its U.S. aerospace and defense headquarters in El Segundo, Alessio Lorusso, Roboze’s CEO & founder, said, “Being present in El Segundo means bringing our technology closer to the most advanced aerospace and defense programs in the United States. Advanced [AM] is now a key enabler of industrial sovereignty, allowing strategic components to be produced locally while reducing external dependencies and ensuring reliability, speed and technological control.”

The Executive VP of Aerospace & Defense at Roboze, Scott Sevcik, said, “Roboze is focused on real-world aerospace and defense applications, using materials that are already familiar to the industry while developing new composite solutions that further expand the application space for [AM]. Our presence in El Segundo allows us to work side by side with customers and partners, accelerating application development and process qualification.”

Two U.S. headquarters for one emerging European company is an impressive feat, and you have to figure Roboze’s first expansion into the U.S. was a success, if the company is willing to double down. Assuming that’s the case, since Roboze already has an established model for how to expand effectively in the U.S. market, it should have an even easier job settling in the second time around.

Out of all the possible verticals a manufacturing enterprise would want to ensure it has the closest physical proximity to, aerospace and defense is probably the one. That advantage is particularly pronounced in an area like El Segundo, which isn’t your standard corporate office headquarters, but is an all-important testing ground for new equipment.

Thus, for a company selling rapid iteration, there’s an incomparable distinction between the work you can get done without someone permanently near the cluster and the work you can get done with a dedicated site in the area. While any number of possibilities exist for Roboze in terms of opportunities to sell its core technology to the local players, I think satellites are arguably the most exciting market there.

As AM Research detailed in a Market Opportunity Brief published last year, we’re very bullish on the potential for AM in the satellites market. While the report focuses mostly on metal AM, the U.S.’s need for new satellite production capacity looks like it will persist far into the future, with planned launches set for unprecedented growth through the end of the decade. It’s very easy to imagine that launch companies will turn to polymers as a replacement solution whenever possible, further reinforcing that Roboze has made a wise decision with its growth plans.

Images courtesy of Roboze