UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM SD

 

 

Specialized Disclosure Report

 

 

The ExOne Company

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

 

JoEllen Lyons Dillon
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary

(724) 863-9663

(Name and telephone number, including area code, of person to contact in connection with this report)

 

 

Check the appropriate box to indicate the rule pursuant to which this form is being filed, and to provide the period to which the information in this form applies:

 

 

 

 

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Section 1 – Conflict Minerals Disclosure

Item 1.01 Conflict Minerals Disclosure and Report

Conflict Minerals Disclosure

This Form SD of The ExOne Company (“ExOne”) or (the “Company”) is filed pursuant to Rule 13p-1 promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Rule”), for the reporting period January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015 (the “Reporting Period”).

Rule 13p-1 requires disclosure of certain information when a company manufactures or contracts to manufacture products for which the minerals specified in the Rule are necessary to the functionality or production of those products. The specified minerals are gold, columbite-tantalite (coltan), cassiterite and wolframite, including their derivatives, which are limited to tantalum, tin and tungsten (the “Conflict Minerals”). The “Covered Countries” for purposes of Rule 13p-1 are the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola.

ExOne is a global provider of three-dimensional (“3D”) printing machines and 3D printed and other products, materials and services to industrial customers. Our business primarily consists of manufacturing and selling 3D printing machines and printing products to specification for our customers using our installed base of 3D printing machines. Our machines serve direct and indirect applications.  Direct printing produces a component; indirect printing makes a tool to produce a component. We offer pre-production collaboration and print products for customers through our network of production service centers. We also supply the associated materials, including consumables and replacement parts, and other services, including training and technical support that is necessary for purchasers of our 3D printing machines to print products.

Our 3D printing machines use our binder jetting technology, powdered materials, chemical binding agents and integrated software to print 3D products directly from computer models by repeatedly depositing very thin layers of powdered materials and selectively placing chemical binding agents to form the printed product. Currently, our 3D printing machines are able to manufacture casting molds and cores from specialty sands and ceramics, which are the traditional materials for these casting products. Our 3D printing machines also are capable of direct product materialization by printing in industrial metals, including stainless steel, bronze, iron, bonded tungsten, IN Alloy 625 and glass. Certain of these metals include gold powder, tungsten powder, and bronze (tin) powder, each of which is covered as a specified mineral by the Rule.  

Because gold powder, tungsten powder and bronze powder each are used in our manufacturing process, we undertook a good-faith reasonable country of origin inquiry, which was designed to determine whether any of the gold, tungsten, or tin included in our products originated in the Covered Countries, and whether any of the gold, tungsten, or tin may be from recycled or scrap sources.

We source gold powder, tungsten powder and bronze powder from four suppliers. Each supplier has provided us with written certification that none of the gold, tungsten, or tin included in our products originated from the Covered Countries.

We believe that the representations that we received from suppliers are true given the facts and circumstances surrounding those representations. In this regard, we note the following:

 

 

 

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Furthermore, we have not identified any indicator or other risks that lead us to believe that any of the gold, tungsten, or tin that we used in our products could be sourced from the Covered Countries.

 

Based on our reasonable country of origin inquiry, we have concluded that the gold, tungsten and tin used in our products did not originate in the Covered Countries. We have provided the above-referenced information on our website at http://www.investor.exone.com/corporate-governance.cfm.  

Item 1.02 Exhibit

Not applicable.

Section 2 – Exhibits

Not applicable.

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

 

Dated: May 27, 2016