GE Keeps Its Checkbook Handy After All-in Bet on 3-D Printing

  • Vice chairman sees ‘one of the most disruptive innovations’
  • Pratt, Siemens also race to integrate devices in manufacturing
Source: Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

General Electric Co. shook up the 3-D printer market last year by laying down more than $1 billion on two acquisitions. Turns out that may be just the beginning.

The manufacturing giant is weighing additional purchases to expand the fast-growing business, said David Joyce, GE’s vice chair in charge of 3-D printing. The burgeoning technology is becoming a new product line as well as a central component of GE’s effort to modernize its manufacturing operations, boost productivity and reshape how everything from locomotives to medical scanners to jet engines are made.