Massivit and Lohia Aerospace Bring Large-Format 3D Printing to India

Indian aerospace manufacturer Lohia Aerospace Systems is partnering with Israel's Massivit 3D Printing Technologies to bring large-format additive manufacturing to India. The joint manufacturing alliance will install Massivit's RapidWings platform at Lohia's facility in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, marking the first commercial large-format 3D printing installation for composite tooling in the country.

The investment totals between $8 million and $10 million over the next one to two years. The money will expand Lohia's Kanpur operations by adding 250,000 square feet of production space alongside its existing 80,000-square-foot facility. The expansion is expected to create an estimated 60 to 100 skilled jobs, with each large-format printer requiring a dedicated team of 8 to 10 people. Lohia plans to bring 8 to 10 printers online.

Massivit's technology combines gel dispensing printing with ultraviolet curing to produce large composite tools. The system can print up to two multi-meter tooling sets per day, cutting traditional tooling lead times by as much as 90%. Where a composite mold once took weeks to produce, Lohia expects to deliver complete sets in days. Each tool is priced at roughly $10,000 to $20,000.

The Kanpur center will specialize in composite tooling and end-use aerospace components. Target industries include unmanned aerial vehicles, manned aircraft structures, automotive applications, and marine engineering. Until now, India has relied on imported large-format tooling. The alliance is designed to replace those imports with domestic production, with the long-term goal of full import substitution.

Massivit introduced its Cast-In-Motion technology at CAMX 2021. The process streamlines composite mold making from roughly nineteen steps down to four. Lohia Aerospace, incorporated in 2019 as the aerospace and defense arm of the Kanpur-based Lohia Group, already operates a composite plant in the Lohia Industrial Complex. It also owns Light & Strong Ltd, a composites manufacturer in Kanot, Israel, with two decades of aerospace composite experience. The broader Lohia Group employs around 5,000 people across nine countries.

Ziki Kuly, Massivit's Chief Business Officer, described the partnership as significant for scaling local production of mission-critical requirements. Lohia Aerospace said the collaboration will enable shorter lead times, lower costs, improved quality, and faster production scale-up for its partners and customers. Whether the project delivers full import substitution depends on execution speed and whether domestic customers trust locally produced tooling over established foreign suppliers. For now, the investment signals that India is serious about building its own composite manufacturing base.