Case Study: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems achieves $2M+ recurring cost savings and scales additive manufacturing with Stratasys

How General Atomics Utilizes Additive Manufacturing

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), a leading developer of unmanned aircraft like the MQ‑9 series, faced the challenge of taking additive manufacturing (AM) from desktop experiments to certified, production-ready flight hardware while reducing cost and accelerating schedules. To achieve this, GA‑ASI built an AM ecosystem and partnered with Stratasys, leveraging Stratasys FDM® technology and Stratasys Direct Manufacturing® services to support prototyping, tooling and production applications.

Stratasys worked with GA‑ASI to define materials and process specifications, accelerate qualification, and provide contract manufacturing capacity so GA‑ASI could scale quickly; roughly 75% of recurring AM parts are produced by vetted contract manufacturers including Stratasys Direct. The collaboration delivered measurable impact — thousands of AM parts now fly on GA‑ASI aircraft, the MQ‑9B SkyGuardian contains about 240 AM parts, and GA‑ASI reported about $2 million in tooling savings plus more than $300,000 in recurring cost avoidance, with some shop‑floor applications seeing up to 85% time and cost reductions.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems

Steve Fournier

Senior Manager