US-based General Electric (GE) is planning to purchase additive manufacturing equipment suppliers Arcam and SLM Solutions Group for $1.4bn, in order to boost the aerospace and industrial sector.

With the purchase, GE expects to develop the new additive business to $1bn by 2020, as well as $3bn-$5bn of product cost-out across the company over the next decade.

Following the completion of the deal, both companies will report to GE Aviation president and CEO David Joyce.

“We are poised to not only benefit from this movement as a customer, but spearhead it as a leading supplier."

Apart from undertaking other initiatives, Joyce will lead the integration effort and the GE Store project to drive additive manufacturing applications across the company.

GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said: “Additive manufacturing is a key part of GE’s evolution into a digital industrial company. We are creating a more productive world with our innovative world-class machines, materials and software.

“We are poised to not only benefit from this movement as a customer, but spearhead it as a leading supplier.

“Additive manufacturing will drive new levels of productivity for GE, our customers, including a wide array of additive manufacturing customers, and for the industrial world.”

The inventor of the electron beam melting machine for metal-based additive manufacturing, Sweden-based Arcam currently serves the aerospace and healthcare industries.

With around 285 employees, the company currently has production facilities in Sweden; a metal powders operation in Canada; and DiSanto Technology, a medical additive manufacturing firm in Connecticut, US.

Based in Germany, SLM Solutions Group produces laser machines for metal-based additive manufacturing and serves aerospace, energy, healthcare, and automotive industries.

The company employs 260 people and has sales and application sites worldwide.

Both the headquarters of Arcam and SLM Solutions Group, along with their management and employees, will be retained by GE.

In July, GE Aviation brought into airline service its first additive jet engine component with the LEAP jet engine, developed by GE and Safran Aircraft Engines joint venture CFM International.