A local 3D printing start-up will build a new factory for mass production

Other companies also use lasers and powdered metals to create specialty parts. But DeMuth says his company’s machines are already 10 times faster than competing products, making them more competitive against older methods of metal shaping, such as casting or stamping. And by 2025, the company plans to speed up the process again by a factor of 10.

“We can achieve attractive price points for high-volume production,” said DeMuth, who believes his system can bring much of the high-end parts manufacturing back to the United States. His advice: “Don’t have parts made on the other side of the world. Have them made locally. Streamline that supply chain.

Founded in 2015, Seurat is named after a 19th-century French painter who created images by putting dots of paint on canvas, rather than brushstrokes. The company’s laser printers work much the same way.

A metallic powder – steel, aluminum or even gold – is spread on a flat surface. A powerful laser dances across the powder, outlining the desired part shape with dots of light. The pieces of powder struck by the laser are melted by the heat and become solid metal. A new layer of powder is added and the laser sweeps over it to create the next layer of solid metal. The process continues layer by layer, until the piece is complete.

“It’s fantastic technology for prototyping and tooling,” said Tim Greene, 3D printing analyst for IDC Corp. at Framingham, “but it’s been difficult to create production-oriented 3D printing systems.”

It’s all about speed: many 3D jobs take hours or more. Indeed, a team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California estimated that it would take 200 years to laser print a reaction chamber for an experimental nuclear fusion reactor they were building.

DeMuth was on that team and figured there had to be a better way.

He and a few colleagues have developed a new approach that uses lenses to split a laser beam into thousands of smaller beams that can be directed individually at the powder. Now, each layer of metal can be created much faster, making the system a more practical tool for high-volume manufacturing.

Many industrial companies use metal 3D printing to build prototype parts or low-volume specialty components. But they won’t be getting their hands on a Seurat machine anytime soon. Rather than selling its systems, Seurat becomes a subcontractor, manufacturing bespoke metal parts to order. The startup says it already works with 14 companies in the energy and consumer products sectors. And it has a 7,000 square foot pilot plant under construction to meet the needs of those customers. (This plant is expected to begin production in the first quarter of 2023.)

DeMuth said the larger factory was needed since Seurat recently signed deals with three major manufacturers to supply them with 25 metric tons of parts. He said the site for the new factory has not yet been chosen. DeMuth would also not identify the parts it will manufacture there or the companies that will purchase them.

But investors who provided Seurat with $79 million in funding include venture arms from manufacturers like General Motors, Siemens, Xerox and Porsche.

Gero Corman, head of digital innovation for Volkswagen Group, which owns 75% of Porsche, said his company uses metal 3D printing to produce prototype parts and manufacturing tools. “Everyone is trying low-volume cases and waiting for the technology to mature,” Corman said.

But when it comes to mass production, he says, “it’s still far too expensive, and that’s where Seurat fits in.” Corman said Porsche had recently started testing the company’s systems, and “the machine is much faster than anything on the market…Seurat can be a game changer there.”

Hiawatha Bray can be contacted at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.