Exhibitor Spotlight: RJ Lee Group
Thursday, 10 September 2026
Tell us about your company in 100 words or less.
RJ Lee Group is a materials characterization and industrial forensics company headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. Founded by scientists who came out of the U.S. Steel Technical Center, we have spent four decades helping manufacturers understand what their materials are made of and why they fail. Our laboratories provide metallurgical evaluation, chemical analysis, and failure analysis, expanded in 2025 through the acquisition of Spectrochemical Laboratories. We also developed IntelliSEM®, an automated SEM software that turns scanning electron microscopy into a repeatable, high-volume analytical tool.
What problem does your business solve for customers?
Our customers know something is wrong with a material — a component failed in service, an incoming lot is out of specification, a build isn’t performing as designed — but they don’t have the instrumentation, validated methods, or interpretive expertise in-house to prove why. RJ Lee Group closes that gap two ways: accredited laboratory testing and expert consultation when customers need defensible answers, and IntelliSEM® when they need to bring automated electron microscopy and particle analysis in-house and run it at production volume.
Which industries benefit most from your technology?
Aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, metals and steel production, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing – including additive manufacturing, where powder chemistry and inclusion control determine whether a build qualifies. Any organization where a materials decision carries safety, warranty, or regulatory consequences benefits from the combination of accredited testing and automated characterization we provide.
How does your solution improve productivity, quality or efficiency?
IntelliSEM® automates the acquisition and processing steps that normally consume a skilled microscopist’s day, so labs can analyze more samples with the staff they already have and get consistent results regardless of who is running the instrument. Instead of manually locating and classifying features, users define a method once and run it repeatedly across thousands of particles or inclusions. On the laboratory side, our metallurgical and materials testing gives customers a defensible answer without the capital cost of building the capability internally.
What technical challenge do your customers typically come to you with?
Most often it is a failure or a specification problem they cannot explain. A part cracked in service, a weld or casting is underperforming, a powder lot is producing inconsistent builds, or a customer complaint requires proof of what went wrong. The question underneath is almost always about composition, microstructure, or inclusion population, and answering it requires both the right instrumentation and someone who knows how to interpret the results.
Which industries are driving the greatest demand for advanced materials today?
Aerospace and defense, energy, semiconductors and electronics, and automotive, particularly where electrification and additive manufacturing are pushing materials into performance ranges that existing quality methods were never designed to verify. Metals producers are feeling the same pressure from downstream customers who now specify cleanliness and inclusion limits that require automated electron microscopy to confirm.
What products, technologies or services will you be showcasing at The Advanced Materials Show USA?
We are showcasing our metallurgical and materials testing services, including the ceramics, metals, and composites testing capabilities added through our 2025 acquisition of Spectrochemical Laboratories, along with our scanning electron microscopy services and IntelliSEM®, our automated SEM software platform.
Why is exhibiting at the show important for your business this year?
This show is in our hometown. RJ Lee Group has been headquartered in the Pittsburgh area since the 1980s, our laboratories are 20 minutes from the convention center, and the audience at The Advanced Materials Show and MS&T26 is exactly the community our scientists work with every day. It is a rare opportunity to meet engineers and researchers face to face and then invite them to see the laboratories where the work actually happens.
Is there a live demonstration, giveaway or exclusive experience attendees shouldn’t miss?
The Advanced Materials Show is an excellent opportunity to meet our microscopists and materials scientists, and because our facilities are a short drive from the convention center, attendees can schedule a laboratory visit and tour while they are in Pittsburgh to see the depth and breadth of our capabilities and see IntelliSEM in action on a live instrument.
What are you most looking forward to at the event?
The conversations. Our best work starts when someone describes a problem they have not been able to solve, and this show puts our scientists in front of the R&D engineers, lab managers, and QA teams who have those problems. We are also looking forward to hosting people at our laboratories and showing them the capabilities behind the booth.
Visit RJ Lee Group on booth 1012 at The Advanced Materials Show in Pittsburgh on October 6 & 7 2026.