On a shopfloor, the difference between a promising build and a costly failure can come down to heat that drifts a few degrees over a long cycle. For DMG MORI, that reality is pushing metal additive manufacturing away from spectacle and towards the disciplines that have long governed machine tools: repeatability, serviceability, and a payback period that survives scrutiny. Patrick Diederich, managing director of DMG MORI Ultrasonic Lasertec, says the company’s bet is not on volume sales but on making laser-based additive behave like the CNC equipment customers already trust.
Diederich positions the group’s additive effort as an extension of its long-standing machine tool business rather than a separate experiment. The unit, established in 2013, began by combining laser deposition welding with five-axis milling. “From the start with a hybrid concept,” he said, the aim was to integrate additive directly into production workflows rather than treat it as a stand-alone technology.
A specialist unit inside a global machine-tool group
Ultrasonic Lasertec sits within DMG MORI as a specialist operation of roughly 200 staff, covering ultrasonic machining for hard and brittle materials alongside laser-based processes for ablation, drilling, cutting, and metal deposition. Additive manufacturing has grown in importance within the group over the past decade, with both powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition machines now built across Europe, Japan, and the US to meet regional demand.
Market adoption has been slower than early projections suggested. Diederich acknowledged that the sector has not reached the volumes anticipated in the late 2010s, although he said additive has secured a stable position in industrial production and R&D. “SLM and DED have their targets, branches, specialties and markets,” he said. “They are completely different. We don’t compete with these technologies.”
Internally, additive has become a design requirement. New DMG MORI machines are expected to incorporate additively produced components where they deliver functional benefits, making additive part of standard product development rather than a showcase technology.
From porosity to payback
The conversation around maturity has shifted. Early concerns about density, porosity and metallurgy have largely fallen away. “This is not a topic anymore,” Diederich said. Attention has moved to return on investment, service availability, spare parts, automation and unattended operation. These are familiar questions from CNC manufacturing, and he sees that as evidence of progress. “We are now talking about the same issues which we have like CNC machines.”
How close is AM to CNC maturity?
He estimates metal additive to be well past its formative stage on the CNC timeline. While CNC has developed over roughly half a century, Diederich places additive somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent of that maturity. Shared controls and software architectures have shortened the learning curve. Siemens controls and similar platforms already underpin both technologies, reducing integration risk for established manufacturers.
The remaining barriers are less technical than operational. Investment decisions still require persuasion, particularly where additive is evaluated alongside conventional equipment. DMG MORI has responded by creating an “additive intelligence” group that works with customers to assess part suitability, redesign components, and test business cases before a machine sale. “The uncertainty is more on the financial side,” Diederich said. “The technology itself is established.”
Process control has become central as machines move into production environments. Directed energy deposition systems monitor powder flow, layer height, nozzle distance, and workpiece temperature in real time. Newer powder bed platforms extend melt pool monitoring and thermal management to improve repeatability. “First part right is a huge challenge,” he said, particularly for powder bed systems where a failed build often means scrapping the entire part.
Large-format machines attract attention, but qualification remains uneven. “You see these huge SLM machines at Formnext,” Diederich said. “I don’t know if a lot of parts are already qualified now. I would say no, not yet.” Much of that capacity remains in research and development rather than serial production.
Thermal stability and long-duration process reliability are now major development priorities. DMG MORI’s latest powder bed machine uses a cast base to stabilise temperature over extended runs, with the build chamber and optics isolated from the machine frame. Closed-loop control adjusts laser power continuously during deposition, reducing operator intervention and lowering scrap rates.
Workforce capability remains a constraint. Operating hybrid additive systems demands the skill set of a five-axis CNC machinist combined with an understanding of metallurgy. Simplifying operations through automation and control software is intended to reduce that burden, but training remains part of the cost equation for adopters.
For Diederich, the comparison with CNC is no longer aspirational but practical. Additive machines are increasingly judged by the same criteria as traditional machine tools: uptime, cost recovery, and integration into factory systems. The shift, he suggests, marks a transition from experimentation to production reality, even if the pace of adoption continues to vary by application and industry.
Repair becomes a production beachhead
Directed energy deposition has found a steadier footing in repair applications. DMG MORI systems are widely used to refurbish dies and moulds in automotive manufacturing. “Almost every car manufacturer is using our machines to repair dies and moulds,” Diederich said. Toyota has permitted the company to state that repaired tooling achieved the same lifetime as new parts, compared with an expected 30 per cent for conventional repairs. Aerospace applications include multi-material components such as rocket nozzles combining copper and Inconel, where localised material properties matter.
Defence demand is rising across both powder bed and deposition platforms, although application details remain restricted. Diederich characterised the work as performance-driven rather than volume-led.
DMG MORI does not disclose total installations, but the scale is modest relative to high-volume powder bed suppliers. In directed energy deposition, the installed base runs to a few hundred machines globally. Powder bed installations are fewer. “We are not talking about thousands,” Diederich said. The company targets high-end production and demanding use cases, avoiding price competition in volume segments dominated by Chinese suppliers.
Repeat buyers: capacity and capability upgrades
Repeat purchases tend to follow two paths. Some customers expand capacity once utilisation is proven. Others replace machines as capabilities advance. In deposition systems, the shift from red to blue laser sources has driven upgrades. Blue lasers enable higher copper content, including near-pure copper, which red lasers cannot process reliably. In powder bed systems, customers are moving to platforms with integrated powder handling, continuous sieving and faster material changeovers as they transition toward higher throughput.
Investment decisions remain closely tied to payback expectations. In Germany, Diederich said, customers typically work to a six-year depreciation horizon. “In these six years, the machine should be paid off,” he said, aligning financing terms with accounting practice. Shorter payback periods exist in some cases, but six years remains the reference point.
Hybrid machines combining additive and subtractive operations account for the majority of demand. Diederich said most projects that begin as non-hybrid enquiries end up requiring full integration.The appeal lies in completing parts in a single setup, switching between deposition and machining, and avoiding multiple fixtures and transfers.
DMG MORI has extended the hybrid concept beyond deposition and milling. Current systems can preheat parts and include an integrated 3D scanner housed in the tool magazine. The scanner captures a point cloud, compares it with original CAD data and identifies defect volumes. These are converted into deposition paths for repair. “The idea was to have a one push button repair solution,” Diederich said. Aside from limited manual correction of scan data, the process runs automatically.
On revenue mix, Diederich does not expect software or materials to displace hardware as the core business. CAD/CAM and additive software are supplied through partners rather than developed in-house. DMG MORI maintains a close relationship with Siemens on hybrid toolpath software, but sells the package rather than owning it. Powder sales are also excluded from the strategy. Early closed ecosystems, where parameters and materials were locked down, have largely disappeared. “In the meantime, nobody does it anymore,” Diederich said, reflecting broader industry openness around process control and materials choice.
Building “machine-tool normal” additive
DMG MORI is trying to position its metal additive systems around the expectations customers bring to machine tools: predictable operation, open process control, and support that carries through ramp-up into serial production.
Diederich said the company has resisted closed ecosystems in favour of a parameter database that covers standard materials, while leaving room for customers to develop proprietary settings for specialist alloys. “We always wanted to have an open database,” he said. The approach is partly practical, partly commercial. In higher-value applications, build parameters can sit at the core of a customer’s competitive edge, and “he doesn’t want to share it, because it’s his benefit and his USP”.
DMG MORI trains customers to develop and validate their own settings, allowing those parameter sets to be added locally to the machine database. Alongside that, the company offers recommendations for powders and suppliers based on its own testing, without trying to control material choice through contractual lock-in. Requests to develop bespoke parameters for non-standard alloys tend to be handled as customer-specific work. “He gets this and nobody else,” Diederich said.
Diederich called for universities and training programmes in Europe and the US to treat metal additive as a mainstream manufacturing discipline rather than a niche topic. The goal is familiarity, not evangelism. Future engineers and technicians should “not have any fear to touch it and to use it”, he said, arguing that the technology is now stable enough for wider adoption.
Powder pricing is watched, not managed
The company remains cautious on whether to sell powder itself. Pricing has become an active topic in the market, but he said DMG MORI has “not taken any influence on this”. Internal debates recur, yet for now the strategy remains hardware-led.
Customer selection, in Diederich’s telling, rests on a straightforward premise: buyers arrive with the baseline assumption that DMG MORI’s additive platforms should behave like its established milling and turning machines. “Customers who come to us are expecting the industrial and operational maturity of a CNC milling or turning machine,” he said. That creates pressure on reliability, service availability, spares, and process control. It also sets the company apart from volume-focused competitors.
Those expectations translate into heavier on-site involvement than DMG MORI would typically provide for conventional machine tools. Additive ramp-ups often require hands-on support to stabilise production and qualify parts. Diederich described teams working alongside customers to move from trials into “serious production”, reflecting the higher knowledge burden created by process development, software choices, and materials behaviour.
Competition remains familiar at the top end of the market. Diederich singled out Trumpf as a frequent rival due to its role as another machine tool builder offering additive systems, and he cited EOS and Renishaw as names that “crop up” in tender processes. Where DMG MORI loses, he pointed first to price, particularly against lower-cost Chinese machines. “High end applications is, of course, a different price level compared to especially Chinese made machines,” he said.
China’s pressure test
That pressure is reshaping how European suppliers talk about differentiation. At Formnext, he said, the number of Chinese exhibitors continues to rise, and the correct response is not complaint but faster product cycles and clearer positioning. “We have to take this as a challenge,” he said. His prescription centres on innovation speed, high-end process capability, and participation in customer development decisions, supported by advisory services such as DMG MORI’s “additive intelligence” team.
Defence offers a clearer boundary for procurement. Diederich was blunt on the limits of Chinese suppliers in that segment: “No defence company in Europe or in the US would invest in a Chinese machine. No way.” He views that as supportive for western OEMs, while still insisting long-term viability depends on competitiveness rather than protected markets.
Two myths: cost and complexity
He also pushed back on two persistent misconceptions. The first is that additive is inherently expensive. Conventional parts may be cheaper, he said, but the comparison shifts when additive adds functional value. “If you talk about intelligence in the part,” he said, “then you have to talk about additive intelligence in the part, like multi materials, like integrated cooling channels, like topography, lightweight.” The second is that additive remains too complex for production. Closed-loop controls and process monitoring have reduced variability, and “the processes are stable”.
Diederich keeps returning to the same destination: a factory where additive is treated as ordinary equipment, not a specialist department with its own priests and rituals. Open parameter databases, closed-loop controls, hybrid repair cells that scan and rebuild tooling, a six-year line drawn under the investment case.
His confidence has a blunt edge. Asked what reason would remain not to use additive once it matches CNC for predictability, his answer was unembellished: “No reason.” The unresolved question is whether Europe can move fast enough on the prosaic parts of the story, training, support, and innovation cadence, while cheaper machines multiply in the aisles at Formnext.
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Featured image shows LASERTEC SLM systems. Image via DMG MORI.
