I think everybody in our industry has an aha moment, where they first see the technology and realize its potential,” says Brian Neff, CEO of Sintavia.

For Brian Neff, that “aha moment” came during a visit to an aerospace engine plant in Munich. After seeing a roomful of 3D printers, Neff realized that he wanted to transform his career. Convinced that 3D printing was the future of aerospace manufacturing, he started a company named Sintavia in Davies, Florida, just outside Fort Lauderdale.

Today, Sintavia is a global leader in end-to-end additive manufacturing. What separates Neff’s company from other 3D printing service providers is their investment in delivering quality. Sintavia offers state-of-the-art laboratories for metallurgy and powder analysis, mechanical testing, post-processing, precision scanning, and quality control. “You can have an aerospace part that fits in your hand,” says Neff, “and if it’s manufactured properly, with all the quality and accreditation, it’s a pretty valuable piece of metal. If it doesn’t have the quality, it’s just a paperweight.”

Sintavia is at a tipping point of producing not thirty or forty parts, but thousands of high-value production parts for commercial aviation. To meet that volume of demand they must have facilities in place. That’s why the company recently opened a 55,000 sq ft advanced manufacturing facility in Hollywood, Florida.

As vital as that facility is to Sintavia’s success, Neff sees another resource as equally critical. “I see the end-to-end solution for software being incredibly important because you can’t have a bunch of people running around with these different technology software silos, entering data and making changes – it doesn’t work,” says Brian.