Page 16 - 3DMP Spring 2022

3D FEATURE
Teaming AM and Machining
DRIVES SUCCESS FOR KAM
Close collaboration between the additive and subtractive teams at Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, on top of huge investments in ERP, cybersecurity and production equipment, allows for full service to its end customers.
BY LOUIS A. KREN, SENIOR EDITOR
The mid-2018 opening of Keselowski Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing boasts a formidable metal-AM-equipment lineup,
Advanced Manufacturing, Inc.
(KAM) in Statesville, NC, marked Nascar champion Brad Keselowski’s entry into full-scale manufacturing. As 3D Metal Printing reported at the time, Keselowski, as KAM founder and owner, “seeks to inte- grate manufacturing technologies and parlay their capabilities into successful projects for aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, oil and gas, and tool and die applications. The company’s prime internal objective: scale up hybrid man- ufacturing capabilities at a production level in Statesville.”
More than 2 yr. later, a 3DMP visit to KAM confirms that the company, with the motto “Aerospace Quality at Motorsport Speed,” has made tremendous progress toward that goal. KAM, having grown to 44 employees, combines engineering
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including 14 recently added machines from EOS and SLM Solutions, giving the company capability to meet the needs of its customers, primarily space, aerospace and defense, for volume production.
expertise with traditional and additive manufacturing (AM) capabilities and tech- nology to serve customers in multiple sec- tors, led by aerospace and defense. The company also plays big in supplying heat exchangers and turbomachinery, with a bit of automotive mixed in. Nickel and aluminum alloys represent the bulk of material processed at KAM, along with some stainless steel, titanium and other alloys.
In 2021 alone, KAM, as part of a focus on serialized production and growth, added $4.5 million in equipment to its 70,000-sq.-ft. operation, including mul- tiple additive and subtractive machines,
surface finishing equipment, and quality inspection equipment.
Beyond its significant equipment addi- tions, in 2021 KAM also invested in data management to bolster quality control and cybersecurity. It implemented Haven cybersecurity as a service from Corvid Cyberdefense, designed to support net- works, email and endpoint security. The military-grade system serves as a strong component of KAM's NIST SP-800 171 compliance and the emerging CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certifica- tion) 2.0 requirements, and reflects KAM’s paramount interest in protecting U.S. Department of Defense and commercial-