Published 2/6/2024

What Is Neighborhood 91?

With its first building completely occupied, the N91 campus is on its way to becoming an end-to-end ecosystem for production additive manufacturing. Updates from the Pittsburgh initiative.

Stephanie Hendrixson

Executive Editor, Additive Manufacturing

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Neighborhood 91 (N91) is a first-of-its-kind campus dedicated to additive manufacturing for production. First announced in 2019, the site aims to house tenants representing all aspects of the metal 3D printing workflow. See it in the video below shot in 2022, or read on.

What Is Neighborhood 91?

Neighborhood 91 is a first-of-its-kind campus dedicated to additive manufacturing (AM) for production. The development seeks to bring all the pieces of the AM workflow together in one location, from powder and gas suppliers to 3D printing users to postprocessing suppliers. The site offers shared perks for tenants including bulk powder storage, a dedicated power grid, and the chance to share resources and knowledge amongst “neighbors.”

The first building of the Neighborhood 91 campus houses (left to right) Cumberland Additive, HAMR Industries, Metal Powder Works and Wabtec.

Where Is Neighborhood 91?

Neighborhood 91 is located adjacent to the Pittsburgh International Airport in western Pennsylvania. The site gives tenants easy access to shipping by air, land or water.

What Tenants Are Located at Neighborhood 91?

The first company to move in was locomotive manufacturer Wabtec, choosing to locate its laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) operations at the site. Contract manufacturer Cumberland Additive joined soon after, bringing its “lightweight metals”-focused LPBF production to the location. Cold spray specialist HAMR Industries and materials producer Metal Powder Works held a joint celebration for respective ribbon cuttings in 2023.

These four tenants occupy all the space in the campus’s first building, but additional businesses have found homes here as well. Also in 2023, JEOL established a presence at the campus with the installation of its electron beam melting (EBM) platform at Cumberland Additive, the first in North America. By 2024, two additional businesses joined the location as subtenants within the Metal Powder Works facility: custom signet ring company The Future of Jewelry (TFOJ) and testing and analysis company RJ Lee Group.

Tenants of Neighborhood 91

Wabtec’s Neighborhood 91 facility is dedicated to laser powder bed fusion of parts for the rail industry. The company’s SLM 800 Hub offers sufficient build size for large brake panels and other locomotive parts made from aluminum.

HAMR Industries uses cold spray technology from Spee3D to repair and produce parts that are no longer in production or otherwise difficult to source.

Metal Powder Works produces powder materials from solid feedstock such as standard barstock. The technique avoids some of the safety issues around shipping or storing metal powders, while also opening the door to 3D printing with alloys not commonly available as powders.

Chris Hefferan of RJ Lee Group provides microscopy and other analysis services on-site at Neighborhood 91 from space inside of Metal Powder Works’ facility.

Cumberland Additive, headquartered in Austin, Texas, chose to locate its LBPF production of lightweight metal parts at Neighborhood 91. This SLM Solutions 500 machine is dedicated to aluminum.

This JAM-5200EBM electron beam powder bed fusion 3D printer located at Cumberland Additive’s N91 facility is the first such system in North America. JEOL engineer Jon Buckley (second from right) manages its operation.

Cumberland Additive’s in-house machining capability is used to support its own additive production, as well as to provide machining services to its neighbors on occasion. The CNC programmer who works at N91 also supports machining at the company’s Texas facilities.

Ground has been broken on the construction of the campus’s second building, which will take lessons from the first, such as the addition of more shared resources including meeting space and amenities.

What Are the Benefits of Locating at Neighborhood 91?

Neighborhood 91 was established to be a largely self-sufficient manufacturing campus accessible by multiple means of transportation. Tenants benefit from shared resources such as a common powder storage facility, inert gas supply, an independent power grid, and in some cases manufacturing equipment. The campus is located adjacent to the Pittsburgh International Airport, as well as major highways, waterways and railways.

N91 tenants have also reported the sharing of services and additive expertise to be an advantage of colocating with the other businesses at this campus. For example, Metal Powder Works frequently supplies metal powders to next-door neighbor HAMR Industries; Cumberland Additive has performed finish machining operations for other neighbors; and all tenants have the advantage of the concentration of knowledge that now exists in this location.

What Are the Goals of Neighborhood 91?

Neighborhood 91 was established to be the “world’s first end-to-end additive manufacturing production campus.” Its stated mission is “To propel the New Collar Workforce through fostering a community of innovators in Pittsburgh — a global hub for engineering, manufacturing and technology.”

In addition to promoting a campus environment around additive manufacturing, the effort is also uniquely equipped to be a testing ground for other initiatives, such as the Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem (RME).

The Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem (RME) at N91

The Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem or RME is a Department of Defense-funded initiative to develop and prove out a self-sufficient advanced manufacturing model for the production of critical parts. Led by The Barnes Global Advisors, the project spans a number of goals including workforce development and training, evaluating current DoD critical parts for AM suitability, and the creation of systems for securely transferring part information across a supply chain.

While funded and managed separately from Neighborhood 91, many activities around this initiative are occurring at the N91 site and most current tenants are participating in these activities. Outside partners including cybersecurity company CyManII and Carnegie Mellon University are also involved.

What Does the Name “Neighborhood 91” Mean?

The city of Pittsburgh is said to have 90 distinct neighborhoods. The additive manufacturing campus is reportedly the 91^st.

Who Started Neighborhood 91?

Neighborhood 91 was developed by key partners The Barnes Global Advisors (TBGA), the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh International Airport. The project was announced in 2019.

See Neighborhood 91

We visited N91 in 2022 to meet with its first tenant, locomotive manufacturer Wabtec. See what the site looked like at that time in the video below.

Related Resources

Transcript

Peter Zelinski

We’re at Neighborhood 91 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Industrial Park devoted to additive manufacturing. We're here to give you a look at how Neighborhood 91 is taking shape.

Stephanie Hendrixson

The concept for this site is to bring together all the different parts of the additive manufacturing supply chain together in one place. There will be parts producers here that will be able to share resources, everything from powder storage to a microgrid that all of these different businesses can operate off of.

Peter Zelinski

Construction is underway, as you can see, but some of the tenants are already moved in.

Stephanie Hendrixson

The very first tenant to move in was Wabtec and they are already 3D printing parts for the rail industry here at this site. Joining them soon will be Cumberland Additive. Both of those companies are parts providers, but we're also going to get different upstream and downstream suppliers later. So future tenants include Arencibia which is a company that produces and recycles argon gas. Also Rusal America, which produces metal powders for 3D printing. And then later on companies providing other services like heat treat, quality assurance and finishing that might be needed.

Peter Zelinski

For a look at some of the 3D printing metal part production that's already being done at Neighborhood 91, check out our episode of The Cool Parts Show about Wabtec and brake system components.

Stephanie Hendrixson

And for more information on Neighborhood 91, check out our website, AdditiveManufacturing.media, as well as Neighborhood91.com.