An East County company that pioneered a niche corner of metal manufacturing is running out of room to grow. FormAlloy Technologies, an El Cajon-based additive manufacturing firm, has outgrown its current facility as demand for its metal 3D-printing systems keeps climbing, according to a recent report from the San Diego Business Journal.
FormAlloy builds equipment based on directed energy deposition (DED), a process that uses lasers to fuse metal powder or wire into fully dense parts layer by layer. Unlike desktop 3D printers that work with plastic, FormAlloy’s machines are built for heavy-duty jobs: repairing worn turbine blades, building complex aerospace components, and manufacturing parts too specialized for traditional casting or machining. Founded in 2016 by engineers with backgrounds at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the company has spent nearly a decade positioning itself at the intersection of San Diego’s aerospace legacy and the broader advanced manufacturing boom.
The fact that FormAlloy has outgrown its El Cajon space is itself a small vote of confidence in San Diego County’s manufacturing base. East County has quietly become home to a cluster of precision manufacturing and defense-adjacent suppliers, benefiting from lower industrial lease rates than the coast and easy freeway access to the region’s aerospace primes. A homegrown company needing more square footage to keep up with orders is exactly the kind of growth story local economic development groups point to when they talk about diversifying San Diego’s economy beyond biotech and tourism.
For other San Diego-area manufacturers and industrial-space tenants, the takeaway is worth watching: as specialized manufacturers scale, availability of larger industrial and flex-space buildings in East County could tighten, and it’s a reminder that advanced manufacturing remains a genuine growth sector here, not just a talking point. Business owners who supply, service, or compete in this space may want to keep an eye on how FormAlloy’s next chapter unfolds.
Stories like this are a good reminder that San Diego’s small and mid-sized businesses are the backbone of the region’s economy, whether they’re printing metal aerospace parts in El Cajon or running a shop in La Jolla or Chula Vista.
Source: San Diego Business Journal
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