Recently, Immensa, one of MENA’s most prominent digital supply chain and additive manufacturing startups, announced a US$20 million funding round. The round was led by Global Ventures – MENA’s leading venture capital firm. To understand the vision and mission of Immensa, Aditya Chanvarkar, Co-Founder and Managing Editor, AM Chronicle had a detailed discussion with Fahmi Al-Shawwa, CEO, Immensa to understand Immensa’s Role in the Evolution of the Global Energy Spare Parts Market
Immensa, was founded by Fahmi to specialize in additive manufacturing and its commercial deployment and application on an industrial level with a focus on the Energy, Mining, and Maritime sectors. Fahmi is a professional manager and entrepreneur experienced in setting-up and institutionalizing companies with extensive post-acquisition and hands-on operational management experience. Over the past 20 years he has developed his expertise and skill-set in turnaround situations, organization building, process implementation, and corporate governance execution.
Q. Immensa operates in the global energy spare parts market, a sector valued at $91 billion. What opportunities and challenges do you see in this market, and how does Immensa plan to capture a significant share?
The global energy sector, with an annual spare parts market value of $91 billion, offers significant opportunities amidst its unique challenges. Immensa’s foray into this sector was a strategic response to the increasing demand and complex supply chain issues. The energy industry, characterized by long asset life cycles of 50-70 years and frequent changes in OEMs, faces challenges in data management and supply chain continuity. We address these complexities through digital manufacturing, which includes additive manufacturing, scanning technologies, and AI. This approach not only streamlines the supply chain but also opens up new markets, particularly in sectors where OEMs no longer exist and where specialized parts, like those used in oil refineries, are in demand.
What happens to the industry is that many OEMs get acquired or consolidated. There are 100s of millions of spare parts across the geography in this sector, and so many OEMs coming in and going out, resulting in data getting missed, which becomes a complex problem for the supply chain. The word “complex” will be an underestimated word, it is actually a nightmare for the energy supply chain. In such a scenario, you will find particular companies in the USA whose job is only to source the connect/ source spare parts for the oil and gas industry. Due to this complexity and the challenges, I see digital manufacturing as a potential solution. When I talk about digital manufacturing, I talk about additive manufacturing, advanced machining, customized casting, scanning technologies, and AI. Applying all these technologies helps us make the process much more efficient. Additionally, non-existent OEMs also provide market opportunities for digital manufacturing. Further, adding some oil refineries that use corrosion-resistant parts increases the complexity of the problem and makes the energy spare parts market, valued at $91 billion.
Q. Immensa’s proprietary AI technology platform, DIS RT, will be crucial in digitizing the supply chain. Can you provide more details on how AI works and its significance in the energy/power sector? Will this offer end-to-end solutions covering assessment, digitization, and production-on-demand?
AI is becoming essential for industries worldwide, and any industry that does not adapt to AI will possibly face the challenge of survival. AI has to be an essential function of any company. When we talk about the application of AI at Immensa, we provide end-to-end solutions by integrating AI. We have experienced that several companies offer digitization without having any experience operating the machines. We are the only company offering a comprehensive solution from digitization to production. As we also understand production very well, that is what differentiates us. The integration of AI in this process is significant because we have AM machines from different suppliers. We also know that each additive manufacturing machine is different, and the variation in the machine’s parameters impacts the part’s quality, so it becomes essential to integrate AI into the process. When a client reaches us post-digitization, with the help of AI, we can easily suggest to them the parts that can be manufactured using additive manufacturing.
Q. Immensa is reshaping the energy sector through digital warehousing and agile supply chains. How does the company plan to digitize warehouses and create more agile supply chains, and what benefits does this bring to the energy companies you work with?
When an energy company struggles with the supply chain, it has to go to several companies for a comprehensive solution. One company performs the assessment. Further, the energy company has to go to another company to digitize the parts. Whenever two companies are associated with the process, there are always possibility for data leakage or missing data. Further, they have to share that data with a company that does the production, which takes the data on a completely different workflow. Several risks are associated with the process whenever you are migrating the data. We have gone through the same process and could not find a potential solution provider. That is why we ended up developing an in-house end-to-end solution; all the data generated in the process is transparent and reliable and can be accessed and assessed by the client at any time. Furthermore, we are adding partners across potential markets who can handle production. We also ensure that the companies can access the data during the complete process.
Q. The company plans to expand geographically, focusing on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and North America. What factors influenced the choice of these regions, and what challenges do you anticipate in entering new markets?
So you know that we are already working in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, they are our home markets with full-fledged operations. We do have presence in neigbhouring markets such as Kuwait, Jordan, and others. We are in the process sof expanding the presence to include Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Bahrain and and evaluating the opportunity to enter the north American which has shown significant potential.
The main challenge in the Middle East market is awareness of AM and ensuring the credibility and integrity of the part being produced. Additive manufacturing is a more complex process than machining or casting. So, building the credibility of the AM, even in the home market, is a challenge.
Regarding the US, the concerns revolve around intellectual property, cybersecurity, and market entry strategies. IP protection is our number one priority when working with clients and OEM’s. Our decision to prioritize these regions over others, like Africa, stems from our existing industry contacts and market analysis.”
Q. Additive manufacturing companies worldwide have seen a negative market sentiment. What are your views about it? What is Immensa’s long-term vision regarding market presence, technological advancements, and contributions to the evolution of the global energy spare parts market?
Recently, we have seen certain companies in the additive manufacturing industry filing for bankruptcy. The additive manufacturing industry has all been about machine manufacturing, but it should discuss additive manufacturing as a process, not an industry. For example, we at Immensa have considered additive manufacturing as a tool for solving the spare parts challenge for the energy industry, so that makes us an energy company and a digital supply chain provider, not an additive manufacturing company. You become a medical company if you use additive manufacturing to manufacture implants or any other medical device. If you look at more mature examples, dental companies incorporating additive manufacturing in the dental manufacturing process are medical dental companies.
Big money was captured by the 3D printing equipment manufacturers, which doesn’t make sense. By education, I am a finance person. I learned how to run machines and then developed a technology company. I remember one of the companies and listening to their pitch. The company was valued at ten times their projected revenue. If you do some reverse calculations, you will identify that the same company must fulfil the global demand for AM machines several times over to make sense of the numbers. Looking at all the data, we expect to see significant correction in the valuation of the machine manufacturers, and we will unfortunately see 3D printing manufacturing companies being sold off at cents to the dollar. The main problem was that correction affected all the adaptors of AM across the value chain.
Additive Manufacturing is an evolving technology facing several challenges. One additional thing that I wanted to add was that each OEM of additive manufacturing has their own software system. Once we get unified operating system by adapting a single software solution, things will be much easier for adopting the technology. There is much scope for development for additive manufacturing on software rather than hardware.
The industry’s reliance on equipment manufacturers has led to an unsustainable business model. Looking forward, unifying the software systems used by different OEMs in additive manufacturing will ease technology adoption. Our vision at Immensa is to be at the forefront of adopting digitization of inventories and adopting advanced manufacturing, transforming supply chains for the 21st century, promoting localization, and enhancing sustainability in the global spare parts market.
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