3d metal printing
I know this is a bit too flavour of the month for some people, but I mentioned to mgt last year that "industrial level" 3d metal printing might be of interest. It is not going to compete with injection-molded simple parts, but it already has a niche for highly complex industrial production, particularly where it is for a limited number of parts.
Exone, for instance, is creating professional printing centres in strategic locations around the world. A company that can't justify the cost of a million dollar printer or hiring expert staff to do design work would outsource, working closely with the printing company.
The technology keeps getting better, with new alloys and competitive tensile strength. Big time applications in aerospace, auto, etc. I don't know exactly how a company like am could enter. One thought would be joining up with a company like exone to take on a new design center in Canada. I'm not suggesting it could be AM's only business, but rather a component if they were to lean toward being some sort of a consulting/project mgt type company.
To say AM doesn't have expertise in this area is almost irrelevant, because the industrial side of the game is just beginning to evolve. Contacts in manufacturing and the ability to assess and manage "complex" projects would seem to be obvious traits of a company I would want to deal with if I were outsourcing a big ticket, low volume project. When your customers are designing satellites or engine prototypes, a lot of money is involved and potentially a lot can be saved with the right approach to project mgt.
As an aside, I saw a really interesting example of a group experimenting with building engine blocks that had corkscrew-type cooling channels. That just isn't feasible with conventional casting, but it is with 3d printing. A company like GE can justify their own machines/staff, but there are probably some medium-sized companies that can't.