Croom Medical, an Ireland-based contract manufacturer of orthopaedic implants, has broken ground on a 38,000-square-foot expansion at its manufacturing campus in Croom, County Limerick. Called the Advanced Centre of Orthopaedic Technologies (ACOT), the project marks the largest single investment in the company’s 42-year history. Construction is now underway, with completion expected by the end of 2026.
ACOT has been described as a purpose-built R&D and industrialisation facility that consolidates multiple orthopaedic manufacturing processes in one location. Planned capabilities include precision CNC machining, lights-out machining and grinding, palletised loading, multi-material additive manufacturing, vacuum furnace heat treatment, electropolishing, anodising, automated polishing and finishing, digital inspection, and clean-and-pack operations. Croom Medical says the goal is to take components from metal and plastic through to finished implant within a single site.
Groundbreaking ceremony at the ACOT construction site. Photo via Croom Medical.
The new centre is intended to support OEM partners across product development stages, from early design and prototyping through to validated serial production. Device categories cited include shoulder, hip, knee, spine, trauma, and sports medicine. Croom Medical links ACOT’s process mix to industry trends such as cementless fixation, robotic-assisted surgery, and additive manufacturing at scale, which it says increase demand for surface finishing capability and vertically integrated supply chains.
Patrick Byrnes, Chief Executive Officer of Croom Medical, said: “ACOT is a strategic investment designed around where this industry is going next. For our OEM partners, it means deeper integration, advanced capability, and a facility built around their roadmaps. At the same time, it creates high-value roles and long-term career opportunities here in Croom, strengthening the local economy and the community that has supported us for over four decades. This facility was built on the trust our partners place in our team, and we’re proud that our growth benefits both our global customers and the town of Croom.”
Founded by Paddy Byrnes in 1984, the Limerick manufacturer began as a precision engineering firm and has expanded into an orthopaedic manufacturing partner for medtech companies. Croom Medical has invested more than €12 million in technologies including additive manufacturing, automation, and new machining centres and currently employs about 150 professionals locally. Industry recognitions cited include Medtech Partner/Supplier of the Year at the Irish Medtech Awards in 2023 and the Innovation in Engineering Award at the Irish Engineering Excellence Awards in 2025 for TALOS, which the company describes as a metal additive manufacturing platform for scalable production of tantalum-based implants. Enterprise Ireland is supporting ACOT’s development, the facility will be solar-powered and digitally connected to support demand from customers in Europe and North America.
Rendering of the Advanced Centre of Orthopaedic Technologies (ACOT) in Croom, County Limerick. Image via Croom Medical.
Integrated additive manufacturing facilities reshape industrial production
Manufacturing on Demand
Large manufacturers are beginning to concentrate additive manufacturing, finishing, and inspection in single locations to reduce development timelines and qualify parts for production environments. Bosch, a German engineering and automotive technology company, recently opened a €6 million metal additive manufacturing center at its Nuremberg plant built around a Nikon SLM Solutions NXG XII 600 system. Equipped with twelve lasers, the machine can produce up to 10,000 kilograms of metal components annually at build speeds of roughly 1,000 cm³ per hour. Engineers at the site use the system to manufacture complex parts such as electric vehicle motor housings, hydrogen components, e-axle parts, and racing engine blocks. By printing directly from digital design data, the process removes tooling stages that can extend engine development cycles by more than a year.
Similar consolidation is taking place in high-performance materials production. ATI, a U.S. manufacturer of specialty alloys and advanced materials, recently opened a 132,000-square-foot additive manufacturing facility designed to integrate design, printing, heat treatment, machining, and inspection within one operation. The installation supports production of components up to roughly 1.5 meters tall using laser powder bed fusion systems and has been certified to ISO 9001 and AS9100D standards. Initial work at the site includes manufacturing precision parts for the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program under contract with Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc. Bringing multiple manufacturing stages together reduces the time required to move complex components from design to qualified production.
Data and automation center. Photo via ATI.
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Author: Anyer Tenorio Lara
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