AnyShape Adds Two EOS M 400-4 Metal Printers to Handle Defense and Aerospace Demand

AnyShape is not waiting for the aerospace and defense market to cool down. The Belgian additive manufacturing service bureau has installed two EOS M 400-4 metal printers and says both could be fully booked for the next two to three years before qualification is complete.

The M 400-4 is a serious machine: four 400-watt lasers and a 400 x 400 x 400 mm build volume. AnyShape has configured the pair for aluminum alloys, including Scalmalloy, and titanium alloys. That mix is exactly what aerospace and defense customers want for large, high-performance parts.

Already Booked Into 2028

Roger Cocle, AnyShape's CEO, posted on LinkedIn that the machines are already making an impact. "Our two new EOS M400-4 systems have barely been installed, and they're already making an impact!" he wrote. "Qualification is currently underway, while our pipeline suggests that both machines could be fully booked as early as October, for the next two to three years. A strong signal of the growing demand for industrial additive manufacturing, and a great challenge to have."

Cocle even teased more hardware. "Could the next machines already be on the horizon?"

Defense Work Is Driving the Spend

The new printers did not appear in a vacuum. In May, Airbus Defence and Space selected AnyShape as an industrial partner for the Eurodrone program, a four-nation European unmanned aircraft project. That kind of long-term, high-volume, aerospace-grade work demands capacity you can prove will repeat.

AnyShape's pitch is end-to-end: design, process development, production, post-processing, and inspection. The EOS M 400-4s fit into that pipeline as the production backbone for large laser powder bed fusion jobs.

From Implants to Industrial Parts

The company also made news earlier this year when it produced its 200th 3D printed titanium implant in a 12-month window. The aerospace and defense push is a different animal, bigger parts, stricter qualification, longer contracts. But the same process discipline that works for medical implants is what gives customers confidence for flight hardware.

What This Signals

Service bureaus often expand in small steps: one machine here, one upgrade there. Adding two M 400-4s at once is a bigger statement. It says AnyShape expects the current surge in defense and aerospace additive work to last, and it wants to be the shop that can absorb it.

If Cocle's October forecast holds, the machines will be running near capacity before the year ends. For an industry that spent years asking when industrial 3D printing would move beyond prototyping, that is a useful answer.