GE Additive opened its first international Customer Experience Center in Munich. The new facility, co-located with GE’s European Technology Center, allows customers to experience every aspect of the additive-manufacturing (AM) process from design to prototyping to operations. Customers benefit from hands-on training and instruction at the facility, covering additive design, machine operations and support. The company’s first U.S.-based Customer Experience Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., opened in April 2016.

The Customer Experience Center in Munich, a $15 million investment, will employ up to 50 GE Additive employees, including technicians and engineers specializing in additive design and production. In addition, 10 additive machines from Germany’s Concept Laser and Sweden’s Arcam EBM have been installed. The facility allows customers to start with a concept, design and build a prototype, and then move all the way through production, while enabling them to think through industrializing processes and helping improve their products and supply chain.

This announcement comes a week after GE and Concept Laser broke ground on a 3D Campus in Lichtenfels, Germany.