The following article appeared on Stars and Stripes:
A Navy-backed 3D-printing lab under construction on Guam aims to slash the monthlong wait for ship and infrastructure parts on the island by producing them locally.
The Guam Additive Manufacturing and Materials Accelerator, or GAMMA, held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Nov. 7 for its 8,000-square-foot site in Dededo’s Pacific Industrial Park. The $40 million project is led by the Applied Science & Technology Research Organization of America, or ASTRO America.
Once complete, the facility will house equipment for measuring, testing and designing metal and plastic industrial components. Although the building is now only a concrete shell, the Maryland-based research institute hopes to have it operating as early as spring, said GAMMA general manager Alex Benham.
“It might not be full-scale manufacturing, but we can produce parts” by March or April, he told Stars and Stripes on a Nov. 12 video call.
Despite its cost and planned capabilities — including a $5 million Navy investment with another $12 million expected — the lab is not intended to design new components.
“They just want to be able to get parts now. They don’t need to be better than the past ones — they just need to be as good,” Benham said. “The problems we’re solving with additive [manufacturing] is entirely a logistical problem.”
Benham said GAMMA’s primary customer will be the Navy, particularly the five nuclear-powered fast-attack vessels in Submarine Squadron 15 at Naval Base Guam. Among the most in-demand items are pump impellers — fan-like parts that move fluid through pumps.
“It’s a common part that is classically hard to design and hard to manufacture, but [additive manufacturing] comes in and kind of solves all that,” he said.
The Air Force and Marine Corps are also evaluating the lab’s potential, especially for producing ground-vehicle components that corrode quickly in Guam’s tropical climate, Benham said. Civilian infrastructure operators, including power, water and emergency services, may also benefit from the ability to reverse-engineer and reproduce parts in weeks rather than months.
GAMMA employs Benham, one local staff member and five interns. He expects the workforce to grow to around 15 within the next two years and to roughly 100 within six years.
That ramp-up includes academic support. ASTRO America is working with the University of Guam to establish a mechanical engineering program linked to the Colorado School of Mines. Students would complete two years of general engineering on Guam and two years of specialized study in Colorado.
“Of course, the hope is we can hire a bunch of those students coming out of the program with the Colorado School of Mines to work in the facility,” Benham said.