Pelagus Targets OEM Legacy Parts Market With Additive Manufacturing to Extend Ageing Ship and Offshore Asset Lifetimes

Pelagus, a 50/50 joint venture between thyssenkrupp and Wilhelmsen, has built a supply chain model that uses additive manufacturing to produce legacy spare parts for ageing ships and offshore installations on demand, working directly with original equipment manufacturers to protect their revenue from grey market competition while addressing the genuine gap that exists for out-of-production components. With roughly half of offshore installations estimated to be over 40 years old and maritime assets following a similar ageing trend, Pelagus chief commercial officer Bjorn Madsen has positioned the company as a tool for extending vessel and platform operating life by five to ten years without compromising quality or intellectual property.

 

The Gap Pelagus Is Designed to Fill

 

The company was established in September 2023 and initially imagined 3D printers at strategic ports producing critical parts on site. Operational reality shifted the model: the components that actually strand a vessel are complex, critical items such as pump impellers and engine blocks that only original manufacturers can build to the necessary tolerances and material specifications. Pelagus therefore repositioned to sell to OEMs rather than to vessel managers, acting as an agile, small-volume manufacturing partner that allows manufacturers to offer on-demand production for parts they can no longer economically supply through conventional inventory. The company manufactures nothing in house, instead operating through a global network of specialist service bureaux built for small-batch production, with physical inventory replaced by digital inventory held as producible digital assets accessible anywhere in the network.

 

Economics of Legacy and Out-of-Production Parts

 

The commercial case is most compelling for parts that have been out of production for decades. When a casting pattern no longer exists because a supplier has gone out of business or the part was last made 20 years ago, recreating the pattern through conventional means can cost up to US$30,000 and take six months. Pelagus 3D prints the tooling in approximately one week, then casts conventionally, delivering cost savings of around 70 percent and lead time reductions of more than 90 percent. For OEMs, the two alternatives to this service are equally unattractive: storing obsolete parts for decades at significant inventory cost, or producing them to order through supply chains not designed for runs of one to three units. Pelagus occupies the space between these options, focusing on the long tail of legacy components across pilot projects with pump, engine, and valve manufacturers.

 

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Liability, Quality, and Regulatory Framework

 

The liability architecture of the Pelagus model is central to its commercial viability. The client is always the OEM, never the vessel manager, with Pelagus qualifying each part to the manufacturer's specification, managing supply chain onboarding, certifying its supplier network, and issuing certificates of conformity. DNV has been involved from the outset through a quality assurance framework and a Print Passport service that vets each production partner and tracks individual parts. ABS is also involved. The manufacturer puts its name to the finished product and includes it within its standard service level agreements, while Pelagus carries the liability of a conventional supplier limited to the value of the part rather than its design or performance in service. Madsen has explicitly ruled out reverse engineering, noting that even the most sophisticated scanning cannot capture the dimensional tolerances or material certifications that only the OEM holds, and that where a manufacturer no longer exists Pelagus partners with an alternative manufacturer rather than making design assumptions.

 

Market Reach and the Conceptual Adoption Challenge

 

The model has expanded beyond maritime, with oil and gas added as a market segment in 2025 and now accounting for approximately 30 percent of customers but roughly half of sales value due to the high cost of subsea components. Aerospace and automotive continue to lead in additive manufacturing adoption, followed by oil and gas, while shipping lags behind despite Pelagus parts already being in use on assets from Japanese and Korean manufacturers that remain among the most cautious adopters. Madsen has identified the primary adoption challenge as conceptual rather than technical, noting that Pelagus is selling a supply chain model rather than a technology, and that established OEMs must rethink their sourcing strategies in ways that require time to implement. The longer-term ambition is to move beyond selling to OEMs and to offer portfolio access directly to end users, enabling asset managers to access on-demand production across the catalogues of their major OEMs and keep vessels running for an additional five to ten years without sacrificing quality or intellectual property protection.