German industrial conglomerate Robert Bosch GmbH, the world’s largest supplier of automotive parts, has announced a new investment into Nuremberg, Germany additive manufacturing (AM) facility. The nearly €6 million in new capital is primarily intended to increase the output scale of metal components for the auto industry.
Part of the investment thus far has gone toward installing a new Nikon SLM Solutions NXG XII 600 laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) machine at the Nuremberg facility. Bosch’s purchase of the printer, the 1000th NXG XII 600 sold by Nikon SLM, was first announced back in November, 2024. In his article about that sale, 3DPrint.com editor-in-chief Michael Molitch-Hou noted that the sale “signal[ed] the fact that Bosch may be moving into serial production of metal parts for automotive applications” with AM, a prediction which has now been confirmed.
In its announcement of the Nuremberg investment, Bosch emphasized engine blocks as one particularly significant automotive use-case for AM, with the time from design to production reduced from up to three years with conventional manufacturing, to as little as a few days with AM. Bosch anticipates that it will eventually be able to produce 10,000 kg of metal parts (over 22,000 pounds) in under a year at the Nuremberg site.
In a press release, Klaus Mäder, a member of the Bosch Mobility sector board, said, “Bosch remains committed to Germany as an industrial location and is investing large sums of money here. By introducing new technologies in our plants, we are securing considerable sales potential.”
Nuremberg commercial plant manager Alexander Weischel said, “By making the manufacture of metal parts faster and more productive, this new facility will increase our competitiveness. Using the 3D printer to manufacture components not only increases sustainability in production, but also enables Bosch to respond flexibly to fluctuations in batch sizes and offer everything from a single source.”
With trade war chaos wreaking havoc on the existing structures of global commerce — a state-of-affairs that the EU is right in the thick of — Bosch’s show of faith in the German industrial landscape is a reassuring symbol of stability. And as the German government moves towards a landmark trillion-euro investment into defense and infrastructure, Bosch clearly seems to be playing its cards right in a context where it’s extraordinarily difficult to know what the smart moves are.
Beyond the pure dollar amount, the much more crucial aspect to this investment is the strategy it foreshadows for how Bosch specifically, and German industry, in general, may approach the blanket of uncertainty spread by trade war jockeying. Here, it is noteworthy that the Nuremberg plant manager quoted above referred to the ability to “offer everything from a single source.”
This seems to go against the grain of the distributed manufacturing concept so frequently pointed to as a major advantage of AM, with the flexibility of printing parts being manifested here in the form of product mix versatility, rather than the potential for geographic diversity. On the other hand, it would seem quite likely that whatever successes Bosch sees with AM at its German facility will ultimately be implemented in any relevant locale where the company also maintains a foothold.
Images courtesy of Robert Bosch GmbH.
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