Beehive Industries has announced a $70 million expansion in Southwest Ohio, targeting production capacity of more than 8,000 additively manufactured jet engines per year, up from roughly 2,000 currently. The announcement came July 21 at the Farnborough International Airshow, made jointly with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, JobsOhio, and REDI Cincinnati, and includes plans to create more than 200 jobs as the company scales full-rate production of its Frenzy engine family.
The manufacturing model behind that target rests on part consolidation. A conventional small turbine engine's parts list exceeds 600 components. Beehive's additive-first design compresses that to approximately 50 unique components. For manufacturing engineers tracking process traceability, the interesting part is how Beehive manages quality at rate: the company logs every gram of powder and every scan strategy through a digital thread to keep the 5,000th engine to the same build standard as the first. Additive manufacturing also drives lead time down directly: a high-temperature nickel alloy turbine component prints in approximately one day, with a total part lead time of one to two weeks, against an 18-month investment casting cycle.
In June 2026, Beehive committed $50 million to 30 additional EOS M4 ONYX metal additive manufacturing systems, each built around a six-laser architecture for high-rate serial production, with delivery to its Colorado and Tennessee facilities expected within 12 months. EOS described the order as the largest single publicly disclosed purchase in its history, bringing Beehive's total EOS machine count to 50. That investment runs alongside a $29.7 million U.S. Air Force contract backing the Frenzy engine family, specifically the Frenzy 8, developed for the Air Force's Family of Affordable Mass Munitions program.
The Ohio expansion builds on acquisitions Beehive made in the Greater Cincinnati area: two precision machine shops, Able Tool Corporation and Planet Products Corporation, which together form its Production Machining Center of Excellence. The company's total footprint spans approximately 300,000 square feet across four facilities in Denver, Cincinnati, Knoxville, and Mount Vernon, Ohio. Headcount is above 400, with a target of 500 by year-end.
An incentive package tied to the expansion is still being finalized, with Beehive pursuing a Job Creation Tax Credit from the Ohio Department of Development and JobsOhio planning additional assistance once a final agreement is executed. The company's five-year target is full-rate production across the Frenzy family while extending additive capabilities into vehicle systems, a trajectory that will depend on EOS and the broader powder supply chain scaling output in parallel.
