Focusing on the global market and unleashing forward-thinking, TCT Asia's new AM International Insights Global Perspectives was held on September 13 this year, focusing on insights into 3D printing industry trends and predictions for future development. Mr. Joseph Kowen, Associate Consultant from Wohlers Associates, powered by ASTM International, and Ms. Wang Xiaoyan, Founder of 3D Science Valley, were invited to speak on the latest market trends and opportunities, providing inspiration for startups and potential new users.

The following content is based on the on-site transcript of the conference, edited and organized by TCT

What is the state, size and profile of the additive manufacturing market today?

What unique features of additive manufacturing offer great promise for its success and growth?

What needs to be overcome to expand the additive manufacturing market and lead it to the next stage of development?

Joseph Kowen：The history of 3D printing is longer than people think, stereolithography was born in 1984, and fused deposition molding technology was developed in 1989. Its name is also from the beginning of rapid prototyping into 3D printing, in recent years we are familiar with the additive manufacturing, from the name of the change can be seen from the focus of this technology from the "mold model" shifted to the "manufacturing technology".

Wohlers Associates, powered by ASTM International deputy adviser Joseph Kowen

The statistical chart below of the number of patents visualizes that additive technology is always evolving, and the development of this new technology has attracted many innovators and entrepreneurs.

From 2012-2015, the number of patents and innovations in the industry showed a relatively large increase. (Chart note: blue represents the application of patents, and red represents the granting of patents)

Wohlers Associates has been observing and tracking the growth of the additive manufacturing market for the past 28 years. Among other things, the overall additive manufacturing market will be roughly $18 billion in 2022, with an annual growth rate of roughly 18.3%. Looking at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 20% over the past decade, the additive manufacturing market continues to grow. The overall additive manufacturing market is expected to reach $50 billion by 2028.

These numbers alone are beautiful, but when you look at the entire manufacturing market (which is about $12 trillion annually), the $18 billion market size for additive manufacturing is a very small percentage of the total.

Note: Yellow for products, blue for services

I'm sure industry people are more than familiar with the advantages of additive manufacturing. Enabling the design of complex geometries, integrated design and production, efficient small batch production and product iteration, supply chain advantages, personalization, and more.

Through additive manufacturing technology, GE reduced the number of parts from 845 to 11

A German shipping company demonstrates supply chain advantages by rapidly producing spare parts through 3D printing

Of course, additive manufacturing is imperfect. The first is the economics of the parts; manufacturers can build perfect, great spare parts, but there is no way to do low-cost, high-volume manufacturing.

The second is the problem of the performance of the spare parts, we can not yet guarantee that the product will not have any problems in the stacking process.

The third is the industry's lack of appropriate standards and regulations, the lack of standards means that the industry is not confident enough about what level needs to be achieved in each application, which is also a reflection of the maturity of the industry. Lastly, there are problems at the operational level, especially when we are handling powders, we need to ensure the occupational health and safety of workers to avoid dust explosions.

In addition to the general standards, there are also industry-specific standards and processes

When it comes to the challenges at the operational level (in the case of manufacturers of metal powders), we must control metal powders to ensure the safety of operators; and focus on the effective cleanup of residual powder from the workpiece with powder recycling technology, which is also an important initiative to realize the economics of additive manufacturing. At the same time, it is also important to ensure the consistency of the parts supplied.

Align is an American orthodontic appliance manufacturing company that has an impressive production volume that can produce over a million pieces a day. They have been utilizing additive manufacturing processes and systems for many years and acquired polymer 3D printer manufacturer Cubicure in September 2023, which is a side note to the fact that a lot of companies aren't entirely dependent on external system manufacturers. In response, I would like to state that many companies are now starting to think about how to shorten the path of additive manufacturing from file to final product as much as possible, and make as much of both the product and the process as possible in the form of automation.

Applications can be said to be the core and key to the future development of the additive manufacturing field, and a new generation of engineers and technicians are constantly digging for new applications. As time goes by, I believe more and more industries will start to understand the value of additive manufacturing and start to utilize additive manufacturing technology.

Question from the audience: We are a manufacturer of lasers, and we would like to know what are the requirements for lasers in additive manufacturing? For example, we are working with a lot of customers now, and they may have higher requirements for consistency, higher requirements for precision, or higher requirements for the overall stability of its future power decay. I'd like to know how you judge lasers from your professional point of view. Thank you.

Joseph Kowen: If I understand correctly, whether it's lasers, or other areas related to additive manufacturing, standards are the most important, and we need to set standards first.

Question from the audience: I would like to ask about additive manufacturing, which is also involved in electronic circuits, and what is your view on the technological development and future prospects in this area?

Joseph Kowen: It is true that some companies are applying additive manufacturing technology in the field of electronics. If it is a quick print of a relatively small product, it can be realized, but if we want to do it on the scale of a grid line, it is more difficult to realize in the short term.

Additive manufacturing needs to take a technological leap forward or its potential will be exhausted.

There are some unseen things that are well worth thinking about, such as software, big data and artificial intelligence

 01 Industry Development Trends

Ms. Wang Xiaoyan: From the VCD era to the DVD era, from the big brother era to the present smart phone era, the development of new technology shows a "jump" development law, rather than linear development. The same is true for the development trend of additive manufacturing technology.

©3D Science Valley

We categorize the stages of development of additive manufacturing into 5 ladders:

The first ladder is the functionalized additive manufacturing process;

The second ladder is the predictable additive manufacturing process;

The third stage is the automated additive manufacturing process;

The fourth stage is fully automated additive manufacturing, including pre-processing and post-processing;

The highest stage is an integrated, fully automated combination of different manufacturing processes.

Currently we are still in the first ladder of development stage, the current manufacturers into the field of additive manufacturing enterprises are facing a wide range of opportunities, as long as the ability to solve any of the pain points leading to the tip of the pyramid, are likely to become the market leader.

Ms. Xiaoyan Wang, Founder of 3D Science Valley

The global additive manufacturing market was valued at €9.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.7% through 2027. This includes metal and plastic printing equipment, as well as manufacturing services for materials and parts. And the industrial metal additive manufacturing market grew by more than 20% again in 2022, closing the gap with plastic 3D printing. The many metal 3D printing exhibitors on the show floor can bring us a visualization.

Suppliers of additive manufacturing equipment have equipment sales valued at €2.5 billion in 2022, with the U.S. accounting for 33% of the global market share and China for 17%. Metal market share is expected to grow more than twice as fast as polymers by 2027, closing the gap with plastic 3D printing market share.

Plastics currently have twice the market share of metals and, due to the much richer application market and nature of plastic 3D printing, are generating much larger revenues on the application side, in areas such as print services. In addition to the current medical and consumer sectors, the next hotspot for plastic 3D printing is electrical appliance manufacturing, and there are already very good solutions in the country.

Plastic 3D printing is expected to grow at 12.9% per year from €6.5 billion in 2022, with polymer powder bed fusion 3D printing equipment accounting for 14% of equipment sales revenue. The installed base of additive manufacturing equipment for polymers is 185,000 units up to this year, and by 2027 it is expected to be between 365,000-464,000 units.

The market has seen the emergence of more print heads for particle-based polymer 3D printing devices, such as those from Dutch startup CEAD, which now pushes the size to up to 40 meters.

The immediate development trend in metal 3D printing is the rise in demand for large-scale equipment for machining sizes in excess of 600mm. One of the drivers is aerospace, where companies are buying metal 3D printing single equipment at an average price of more than 1 million euros, purchasing equipment to meet the processing of large-size parts on the one hand, and on the other hand, in order to meet the requirements of mass production manufacturing of low-volume parts.

Until this year, the historical installed capacity of metal equipment is 16,600 units, of which the two mainstream technologies, powder bed and directed energy deposition, the installed capacity is about 14,000 units. By 2027, the cumulative installed base of metal equipment is expected to be between 37,000 and 39,000 units.

In 2022, global sales of metal 3D printing equipment reached €1 billion, with aerospace applications accounting for 168 million, and more metal printing equipment vendors will center their R&D on the development of larger, more productive, and more robust equipment.

In the field of plastics, powder bed fusion, light curing, melt extrusion are a few technologies that have gained expanding applications in industry, and the next application area is the integration of automation levels for these technologies.

The metal powder bed fusion 3D printing is currently the market's most mature one 3D printing technology, there are more than 80 metal powder bed fusion 3D printing equipment vendors worldwide, occupying 80% of the market share, China's orders in the aerospace and defense sector exploded, and with it comes the explosion of demand for metal powder.

By 2030, the consumption of metal additive manufacturing raw materials is expected to grow at 20-40% annually. We see that the large booths in the exhibition hall are basically equipment vendors, and it is possible that in two or three years, there will be some large booth area for material manufacturers at TCT Asia.

Particularly noteworthy is that 40-60% of the application scenarios in which titanium alloys, nickel-based alloys, and cobalt-chromium alloys will be realized through 3D printing, while stainless steel will probably grow to 10-15% through 3D printing.

02 The Age of Intelligence - 3D Printing Enters Mature Development Software Enablement

There are some unseen things that are well worth thinking about. At present, it is a very clear development trend that platform software drives the development of other types of software for additive manufacturing.

To achieve predictable, quality and repeatable additive manufacturing development stage, it is necessary to process control software, simulation software, design software, overall cooperation to drive the entire additive manufacturing from a foolproof into a more intelligent development trend.

In addition, the digital characteristics of additive manufacturing has been very full, if combined with big data and big model training, that will further promote the development of additive manufacturing industrialization.

©3D Science Valley

I would very much recommend that we pay more attention to providers that do inspection type solutions, if we get a breakthrough in inspection, we can accumulate a good batch of data, and this will become the biggest gold mine in all manufacturing processes in the future, but of course it must be dynamic.

03 Starting point for strategic thinking

Combined with the characteristics of the development of domestic additive manufacturing, there are three strategic thinking starting points to share with you. The first is brand strategy, which includes corporate culture and values, as well as technology moat and brand moat; the second is value chain strategy, selecting the links with core competitiveness and creating added value; and the last is investment strategy, through domestic and overseas investment and M&A, to strengthen the ability of anti-risk, and also think about how to build enterprise-level industrial investment incubators to empower others.