Essentium, Inc., a leader in industrial additive manufacturing, announced the first in a series of findings from independent global research on the current and future use of industrial 3D printing. The study reveals a significant increase in the use of large-scale additive manufacturing (AM). The number of manufacturers using 3D printing for full-scale production has doubled compared to last year (40% in 2019; 21% in 2018). Two-thirds of companies reported they have more than doubled their use of industrial-scale AM in their manufacturing, and 47% are now using the technology for runs of thousands of printed parts, a jump of 17% compared to 2018.

While reduced manufacturing costs is a key driver for many manufacturers (58%), the increased adoption of AM at scale is also fuelled by manufacturers’ need to improve customer response time. 61% of respondents said they are adopting the technology to reduce lead times, 59% believe they will benefit from mass customization, while 59% are looking to increase speed-to-part production, and 51% want to achieve high part performance.

As industry-scale AM enables new capabilities not possible with traditional manufacturing, two-thirds of manufacturing companies surveyed see themselves as leaders in 3D printing innovations. Despite the optimism, some companies still face obstacles including the high cost of 3D printing materials (51%); expensive 3D printing hardware (38%); and current 3D printing technology does not scale (31%).

Essentium is using this survey information to create an open ecosystem with the HSE printing platform (which the company claims re-writes the speed and economics of industrial-scale AM), an open software environment, and a broad choice of materials.

Survey methodology:
162 managers and executives from manufacturing companies across the world completed the survey on their current experiences, challenges and trends with 3D printing for production manufacturing. Participants included a mix of roles and were from companies of various sizes across industries including aerospace, automotive, consumer goods and contract manufacturing.

Essentium
essentium3d.com