Answer extracted from the Inspiring Industry Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
Which industrial sectors is SPEE3D expanding into beyond defense?
SPEE3D is pivoting toward five heavy industrial sectors—mining, oil and gas, rail, marine, and automotive—where supply chain failures carry catastrophic costs. The company's target is a 50–50 split between defense and heavy industry revenue, though current operations remain at approximately 80% defense.
The million-dollar downtime problem
These five sectors share a common pain point: dependency on spare parts for critical operations. When a mine site cannot source a replacement component, the financial impact is severe. As Kennedy explains in the episode, the cost of a single day's downtime on a mine site can reach $1 million daily—a loss that accrues hour by hour until the part is available.
SPEE3D's value proposition addresses this directly: local, immediate manufacturing of replacement parts eliminates the delay and expense of traditional supply chains. For industries operating at scale—mining operations, offshore drilling rigs, railway networks—the ability to manufacture a critical part onsite transforms downtime from a catastrophic event into a manageable interruption.
Why heavy industry is the natural next market
Heavy industry and defense face fundamentally similar manufacturing challenges: the need for rapid part production under extreme operational constraints. Defense deployments require field-level manufacturing capability; mining and oil extraction require the same resilience against supply disruption. Kennedy's strategy recognizes this overlap—both sectors value speed and local control over manufacturing destiny.
The shift toward 50–50 revenue distribution reflects realistic market sizing. Defense will remain a core business, but the addressable market in heavy industry is substantially larger, with acute, quantifiable pain points that SPEE3D is actively targeting. Current operations sit at 80% defense partly because the company has been proving the technology within the more controlled, contractually straightforward defense context; the expansion roadmap prioritizes the heavier, high-impact industrial segments where downtime costs justify the investment in onsite additive manufacturing.
"You can eliminate that mould. You don't need that mould. And suddenly you don't need a big factory and you don't need a lot of capital intensive equipment to be able to manufacture parts anymore."
Byron Kennedy — Co-founder, SPEE3D. Kennedy spent over a decade in manufacturing after selling an electric motor company to a large U.S. firm, giving him direct insight into the bottlenecks plaguing heavy industry. When he and co-founder Steve Committery encountered metal 3D printing technology around 2015–2016, they saw an opportunity to build a system orders of magnitude faster than existing alternatives—unlocking manufacturing flexibility for sectors bound by traditional tooling and supply chains.
The strategic expansion into mining, oil and gas, rail, marine, and automotive is not a pivot; it is a logical extension of SPEE3D's core value: decentralized, rapid manufacturing control for industries where traditional supply chains fail.
Key takeaways
- SPEE3D targets mining, oil and gas, rail, marine, and automotive as primary growth sectors beyond defense.
- Mining operations face $1 million per day in downtime costs when critical parts are unavailable—making local manufacturing highly attractive.
- The company's ideal revenue mix is 50% defense and 50% heavy industry, shifting from the current 80% defense concentration.
- Heavy industry shares the same core need as defense: rapid, localized part production to eliminate supply chain dependency.
See also
How does leadership philosophy influence talent attraction and team motivation at SPEE3D?
Kennedy and Committery follow the leadership philosophies from Jim Collins' book 'Good to Great,' emphasizing mathematical rigor and evidence-based decision-making to build a high-performing team aligned around clear, measurable goals.
What is SPEE3D's unique market positioning within the broader 3D printing industry?
Unlike conventional metal 3D printing focused on slow, highly precise or complex parts, SPEE3D targets commodity, low-cost, fast parts—manufacturing speed and accessibility rather than extreme precision.
How has SPEE3D deployed its technology with defense forces globally?
Starting around 2019, the Australian Army approached SPEE3D for field deployment of its four-ton printer. After refinements during COVID, SPEE3D expanded to seven systems operating in Ukraine and engagements with five defense forces worldwide.