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SmarTech’s Metal 3D Printing Powders Report Sees Stalled Growth to $3.7B in 2020

SmarTech Analysis has published the sixth edition of its report dedicated to metal 3D printing powders, “Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders 2020”, which takes into account the economic challenges and opportunities associated with metal additive manufacturing (AM) in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using what the market research firm calls “a robust market tracking and forecasting dataset” that is provided with the report, SmarTech explores current dynamics in metal AM, both focusing on short-term trends and long-term projections.

The company predicts fewer purchases of metal 3D printing hardware, due to the economic downturn, may be partially offset by opportunities in material and production services resulting from new interest in 3D printing, leading to single-digit growth in these segments. In turn, SmarTech anticipates single-digit growth in metal AM revenue even after the economic issues faced by 3D printing companies. This growth is dependent on firms conducting new market strategies founded on this new interest in overcoming supply chain issues faced during the pandemic, according to SmarTech.

SLM Solutions facility in Lübeck, Germany. (Image courtesy of SLM Solutions)

As we have seen, the pandemic has impacted every company in the industry, from 3D Systems and Stratasys to GE and Boeing, but that some firms have been able to weather the storm to some extent. SLM Solutions, for instance, has curiously posted a 90 percent increase in revenue growth over the first half of 2020 compared to last year through an order backlog from 2019 and a careful review of these orders.

SmarTech notes that nearly every firm in 3D printing used AM in a positive manner during the pandemic, either to produce critical components for medical care or to enable the development of new medical products for future events. As a result, 3D printing has come to the forefront of manufacturing once more. At the same time, the market research company points out that the fact that metal AM is heavily tied to powder bed fusion has “raised the collective bar for performance and capability of the technologies, exposing holes in the broader manufacturing landscape in terms of necessary expertise in additive.”

Source: SmarTech Analysis

Despite the economic depression that has resulted from the impacts of the virus, new investments were made into metal AM in 2019 and early 2020. While growth has slowed, there have been new business ventures, with SmarTech pointing out that, so far during this time, the emphasis of these projects has been on production services rather than hardware.

An example of this is further investment by one of the world’s largest traders of goods and services, Sumimoto Corporation, in metal 3D printing service provider Sintavia. Despite the pandemic, Sumimoto is pouring more funds into the Florida-based AM company to scale its production for flight-critical parts.

Sintavia is the only company in the world with Nadcap approvals for laser additive manufacturing, electron beam additive manufacturing, and in-house heat treatment. (Image courtesy of Business Wire)

In addition to the new SmarTech report, the report’s author and Vice President of Research for Smartech, Scott Dunham, has recently written a 3DPrint.com PRO article providing some insight into the short-term dynamics of the metal 3D printing powders market. In that article, he notes that metal powders grew significantly in 2019 at a rate of 37 percent, compared to 2018. In the first three months of 2019 alone, as much powder was sold and shipped as in all of 2014 combined. This is driven in part, according to Dunham, by a small group of “AM power users”, such as Stryker, Siemens, and GE, who are using metal 3D printing for series production of important parts.

In other words, though the pandemic is generally slowing economic growth overall, the benefits of 3D printing when successfully implemented are continuing to make their way into general manufacturing. While growth may slow to single digits in the near-term, the long-term outlook for metal AM is bright.

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Ceramics 3D Printing to Hit $4.8B by 2030, Says SmarTech

SmarTech Analysis has put out its most recent report on the ceramics additive manufacturing (AM) market, Ceramics Additive Manufacturing Part Production: 2019-2030. The report suggests that, even with the current dynamics occurring related to the COVID-19 outbreak, the ceramics AM market will reach an estimated $4.8 billion in revenue by 2030. Moreover, the report suggests that final parts, both technical and traditional, will drive these opportunities in the medium- and long-term.

Ceramics 3D printing still fits into the emerging technology field, though there are certainly a number of companies that have developed full-fledged ceramics printing technology. What SmarTech projects is that this dynamic will change mid-decade, with the ceramics 3D printing market will hitting an inflection point after 2025 as all major ceramics AM technologies become fully developed and are established enough to perform serial production. After this inflection point, the company projects the ceramics AM applications market to triple in size, once the market has fully recuperated from the COVID-19 slowdown.

This definitely fits with the trends suggested by the development of serial 3D printing technology. Multi Jet Fusion from HP, traditional binder jetting from ExOne, high speed sintering from Xaar and MOVINGLight from Prodways/3DCeram all suggest that mass production of ceramic 3D-printed parts is around the corner.

The Admaflex 300 ceramics 3D printer. Image courtesy of Admatec.

The report segments technical and traditional ceramic materials, such as alumina 3D printing from a company like Lithoz or Admatec versus sand printing from a company like ExOne. This also informs the specific applications covered in the report, ranging from medical or electrical components using technical materials to sand cores and molds. Naturally, the AM service bureaus offering ceramics printing are explored, as well as the types of parts. Other companies discussed include: 3DCeram-Sinto, voxeljet, SGL Carbon, Schunck Carbon Technologies, XJet, Nanoe and more.

Image courtesy of SmarTech Analysis.

Compared to previous issues of SmarTech’s ceramics report, this edition will for the first time include the new bound ceramic 3D printing segment and materials, in which green ceramic parts are made via thermal extrusion of ceramic powders bound in a thermoplastic filament matrix.

Interestingly, the report takes into consideration the impact from COVID-19 on the ceramics AM market, with modeling associated with the resulting economic slowdown and how that will extend through 2025. Apparently, the company has established two levels of impact, with some segments more significantly impacted in the short term and others less so, realigning to previously forecasted levels by 2024.

This, according to the market research firm, will also be reflected in regional effects, with the APAC region benefitting from more efficient methods of managing business and manufacturing amid the pandemic. SmarTech suggests that APAC countries, China and Japan in particular, are already adopting ceramic AM at a faster rate than European and American countries.

The full table of contents and the report itself can be found at the SmarTech website here.

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Scott Dunham: SmarTech Industry Forecasts for Metal and Medical/Dental 3D Printing

The 2020 Additive Manufacturing Strategies (AMS) event ended earlier this week in Boston. The summit was focused on the business of 3D printing in medical, dental, and metals, so it makes sense that Scott Dunham, the Vice President of Research at SmarTech Analysis, was on hand to give everyone a sense of where we are in these industries, just like at last year’s AMS. SmarTech provides the additive manufacturing industry with industry analysis reports and consulting services, and Dunham began with the company’s metal additive quarterly advisory services. These reports are compiled using data from 10-12 consecutive quarters.

Dunham noted that the messaging and adoption rates have changed for metal AM, and that while we’re all still “working towards the same goals,” we are “drilling down to specific solutions and challenges.”

“Metal additive manufacturing is in a strange place right now,” he said. “From 2016 to 2018, there was lots of hype, lots of investments and growth and attention paid, and the growth was aggressive and accelerated. But now, the past couple of years, we’re in this period where people are saying, ‘What’s happening? We though this technology was supposed to revolutionize things.’ Growth rates don’t always line up with perceptions.”

He got into some of the specific factors that are going into the challenges the metal AM market is facing. There’s a large disparity between metal AM hardware and metal powder sales, which Dunham said tells us that metal 3D printers are viewed much differently than the machine tool systems to which people compare them.

“Right now, the machines are not viewed or utilized in the same way that other popular manufacturing tools are, so people are still looking at this as a longer-term opportunity that still needs development work and may not necessarily always be the right tool for high-volume serial production,” he explained. ” Users now understand they can’t just drop it on the shop floor like a CNC machine. This in some ways is a barrier to growth. There are still plenty of investments being made, though, but maybe we don’t expect those days to last forever now. We may be ending the phase of early adopters and innovators who want to make these investments.”

In the years 2014-2016, the sale of metal machines was averaging just below 30%, then climbed up closer to even, but are now dropping again a bit. According to SmarTech, non-metal 3D printers are still generating most of the hardware sales, but Dunham said we should see more of a 50/50 split into the mid 2020s.

SmarTech has a theory that this leapfrog effect is due to the current two-tiered market scenario. The advanced market focuses on serial applications and high-volume production, while the legacy market consists of applications that have around for a long time, maybe resembling a factory floor, such as injection molding and tool inserts, jigs and fixtures, prototyping or limited series, medical and dental models, and one-off high volume components. Dunham said these markets are both important, but that they each have a “different set of considerations.”

He pointed out that this advanced market will soon grow to over $4 billion worth of AM hardware sold.

“We consider this side of things a little bit further ahead of polymer machine sales,” Dunham explained. “That’s why there’s so much focus on metals.”

So, where is all this growth in the metal AM market coming from? Dunham said that hardware sales is a “good indicator of the pulse of the industry,” and that SmarTech is seeing a lot of growth on what Dunham called “the fringes,” like some of the new companies coming up over the last few years, as well as the legacy manufacturing companies adopting the technology for the first time. He referred to the newer companies, such as Desktop Metal, HP, Markforged, Trumpf, and VELO3D, as “challengers,” while the legacy companies were called “incumbents.”

Next, he talked about metal 3D printing service bureaus, which see a global market of a little over $2 million.

“It’s a pretty big opportunity on the metals side, but not as big as we think it should be, or as big as polymer service bureaus,” Dunham said. “But the footprint of metal additive manufacturing in the healthcare industry is very important, and will continue to be so.”

Dunham pulled up a slide about powder bed fusion technology, noting that because the dental industry was so mature in terms of AM adoption, it actually skews the production data in the top two graphs

Bound metal processes, like binder jetting, are currently used often for tooling, and SmarTech forecasts that applications for this technology in prototyping and end-use components will rise. Dunham said that powder-based DED 3D printing is currently “heavily skewed” towards end-use components, in addition to prototyping, and that the “vision of this will likely not change much in the future.

Moving on to the market value of metal parts produced with 3D printing, Dunham said that this number is “hard to assign,” but that investments by end users are likely just south of $5 billion. However, there are lots of high-value parts to consider, which contributes to that number.

“By 2025, we expect that all metal 3D printed parts will exceed 20 billion,” he stated.

In terms of project applications for metal AM, healthcare leads the pack, with crown and bridge substructures and hip implant components at the top of the list. If you remove medical applications from the equation, we’re looking at using the technology to repair high-value turbine blades and aircraft parts, valves and pumps in the oil & gas & energy sector, and more medium-sized industrial components.

“If you’re a supplier in the industry, these are what will succeed,” Dunham said. “The incentive here is to invest in different approaches to metal additive manufacturing.”

Dunham summed everything up by saying that while metal AM is still demonstrating value, entry barriers, such as financial reasons, are also high, which does deter growth somewhat, and that a multidisciplinary approach to it is necessary for growth to continue.

Then I followed Dunham out and into the next room for the SmarTech medical 3D printing forecast, which was wisely titled “Healthcare – the Backbone of Additive Manufacturing.”

“Within the healthcare segment, there are many ways that AM has been and will continue to be leveraged,” he stated. “There are some very industrialized serial, serious manufacturing applications in healthcare, so emphasis is put on the customization of these devices.”

He noted AMS 2020 has a theme of looking at business cases, which is why it’s so heavily focused on dental and orthopedic 3D printing applications.

“We don’t think these are more impactful or important, but these are areas that we’re seeing more challenges and work here,” Dunham explained.

Excluding software numbers, the healthcare portion of the AM market – combining medical and dental applications – is a little over $3 billion dollars; truly, “the backbone of the industry.” These revenue numbers have gone down a bit, because there’s a lot of attention being paid to industrial markets, but Dunham said that SmarTech forecasts a stabilization, stating that healthcare will “continue to be important to overall industry structure for at least the next several years, and into decades.”

As has been previously mentioned, in comparison to other industries, dental is “fairly mature overall in its adoption of additive manufacturing.” If you’re looking at metal AM used in healthcare, you get into the orthopedic sector, which means you’re looking at implants.

“The longer that we can gather clinical evidence for these implants the better,” Dunham said, noting that this will help ‘build confidence’ with metal 3D printing in the medical field.

Some OEMs are bringing AM in-house, so that they can better control the process to try and ensure a good outcome. A lot of factors go into making medical implants, and if something goes wrong, “clinical efficacy is damaged.”

As of yet, there isn’t a huge push by OEMs for non-metal 3D printed implants, but SmarTech believes this is coming later, for materials like ceramics, and especially for craniomaxillofacial (CMF) implants.

There are plenty of business use cases for metal orthopedic 3D printed implants, and while the hip is still in the lead, about a third of 3D printed implants made now are are spinal. But Dunham said that hip implants won’t dominate the production numbers forever, as the 2025 forecast shows more diversification coming.

Moving to the dental side of things, companies are seeing a lot of success with high speed vat photopolymerization technologies, which Dunham said was expected. But what they didn’t count on was the aligner segment looking to get into powder bed fusion.

“No one process has everything locked down, and we can all benefit from more competition to push the technology forward,” he said.

Dunham said we should expect that 3D printing will ultimately follow the “trend of machines in dentist offices.”

“We expect a pretty healthy growth in investment by dental offices and clinics, though dental labs are still where it’s at from a hardware perspective.”

Dunham pulled up a slide that showed numbers from 2018, and forecast out to 2027, that show specifically what’s going to keep driving the sale of materials and hardware for dental applications. Looking at things like direct aligners and aligner tools, models, surgical guides, and denture bases and trays, it’s clear that he’s correct when he said that there is a lot of “diversification going on out there.”

Stay tuned to 3DPrint.com as we continue to bring you the news from our third annual AMS Summit.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

[Photos: Sarah Saunders]

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Early Bird Discount for AMS 2020, “The Business of 3D Printing,” Ends Tomorrow, February 5th

3DPrint.com and SmarTech Analysis will be holding the third annual Additive Manufacturing Strategies event next week, February 11th-12th, at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Massachusetts. This year, AMS 2020 is titled “The Business of 3D Printing: Medicine, Dentistry and Metals,” and will be centered around 3D printing business practices and applications in both the medical and dental fields, as well as industries, such as automotive, which use metal often.

AMS 2019

Tomorrow, February 5th, is the last day for attendees to take advantage of the final Early Bird registration discount for this event. Full access to the entire Additive Manufacturing Strategies summit, which will include an exhibit hall, multiple keynote presentations, the annual Startup Competition, a networking reception, fireside chats, SmarTech’s forecasts on 3D printing for the medical and dental industries, and more, requires paid registration. You can attend the competition and stop in to visit the exhibit hall for free, but you’ll still need to register.

Members of the 3DPrint.Com and SmarTech Analysis teams will be present during the event to meet with other attendees, and more than 60 expert speakers will be on hand to share their expertise with us at AMS 2020 in panels, presentations, and fireside chats. About 30 exhibitors and sponsors, including Platinum Sponsor Global Advanced Metals and Gold Sponsor EOS, will be there as well.

While AMS traditionally covers 3D printing in the medical and dental fields, the metals track is new this year. In fact, SmarTech just released a new report on metal additive manufacturing service bureaus, which will be one of many topics addressed at AMS 2020 next week.

“This is SmarTech’s latest business assessment and market forecast of metal additive manufacturing services,” SmarTech writes about its report. “It updates our analysis and market projections and also extends the coverage to include a broader range of services and profiles of leading AM service firms. It also assesses the impact on the business of service bureaus on the changes that have occurred in end user industries and on the dramatic shift of AM to become a fully-fledged manufacturing process.”

Image: SmarTech Analysis

To gain full access to our AMS 2020 event, and receive the final Early Bird discount, you need to register by tomorrow, February 5th.

Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

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AMS 2020 Focusing on Business of 3D Printing in Medical, Dental, and Metals

In just a little over one week, 3DPrint.com and SmarTech Analysis will be holding our third annual Additive Manufacturing Strategies event. For the second year running, the summit will be taking place in Boston; the first AMS summit was held in Washington, DC in 2018. Titled “The Business of 3D Printing: Medicine, Dentistry and Metals,” AMS 2020 focuses on – you guessed it – 3D printing applications and business practices in the medical and dental fields, as well as industries that frequently use metal, such as aerospace. While the first two AMS events were also centered around medical and dental 3D printing, the metals track is a new one for the conference this year.

Over 60 expert speakers will be sharing their expertise with us at AMS 2020, focusing specifically on end-user experiences, regulatory perspectives, and the vendor and materials companies. Specific topics will include multilaser 3D printers, emerging trends for 3D printing in healthcare, 3D printed implants, hybrid metal and large-format 3D printers, 3D printing and modeling in surgical planning, the future of metals binder jetting, software and design for metal 3D printing, 3D printing in the aerospace and automotive sectors, materials for 3D printed dental applications, 3D bioprinting, and much more.

Members of both the 3DPrint.Com and SmarTech Analysis teams will be present over the two day event to meet with other attendees. In addition, Scott Dunham, the Vice President of Research for SmarTech Analysis, will offer forecasts on 3D printing in the medical and dental industries.

Scott Dunham at AMS 2019. Photograph taken by Sarah Saunders

AMS 2020 will also feature a networking reception, fireside chats, and the Startup Competition. OsseoPrint 3D was the winner of last year’s competition, for its platform technology for implantable, 3D printed, patient-specific bone scaffolds, and received a $15,000 cash investment from early stage venture fund Asimov Ventures. At this year’s competition, seven different contestants will compete against each other at 6:05 pm on February 11th.

Attendees can also visit the exhibit hall at the summit and speak with representatives from many different companies, including:

Additive Orthopaedics
Arburg
ASME
FibreTuff
nTopology
R&D Technologies
Tethon 3D

AMS 2019 exhibit hall. Photograph taken by Sarah Saunders

Coffee sponsors for this year’s event are 3D printing consultancy Blueprint and VELO3D, while EOS is a Gold Sponsor and Global Advanced Metals is a Platinum Sponsor. Media sponsors include Women in 3D Printing, 3DMedNet, 3DHeals, Inside 3D Printing, and more.

For free entrance to the exhibit hall and the startup competition, you will need to register ahead of time. To gain full access to the entire event, and receive the final Early Bird discount, register by February 5th. AMS 2020 will be held at the Seaport World Trade Center from February 11-12. We hope to see you there!

Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

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3DPOD Episode 15: The Ceramics 3D printing market: Davide Sher of SmarTech Analysis and 3D Printing Media Network

Davide Sher used to write extensively on 3D printing. Nowadays he runs his own media network in 3D printing and works for SmarTech Analysis. Davide looks at 3D printing from the outside in as a journalist and is always curious to learn more and find trends in the market. Through his media network he publishes 3D printing news stories and for SmarTech he crunches the data and interviews to come up with market reports. Davide wrote a ceramics 3D printing market report. In that report, he identifies key 3D printing trends in ceramics and estimates market size and growth. He also looks at emerging applications and players in 3D printed ceramics. Max and I spoke to him in order to find out more about the exciting area of 3D printed ceramics. Ceramics are extremely high-performance materials with a high wear and chemical resistance as well as operating temperatures but how close are we to being able to use these materials?

Our other podcasts:

Velo3D’s Zach Murphy talks about Velo’s technology and development.

We interview Formalloy’s Melanie Lang on directed energy deposition.

Greg Paulsen of Xometry talks to us about 3D printing applications.

Here we discuss 3D Printing in space.

We interview pioneering designer Scott Summit as he crosses Amsterdam on a bicycle.

Janne is another pioneering designer in 3D Printing.

3D Printing in Medicine.

3D Printed Guns.

Interview with 3D Scanning pioneer Michael Raphael.

3D Printers in the classroom, panacea or not?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, what is happening now?

We’re all going to live forever with bioprinting.

The first episode: Beyond PLA.

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SmarTech Analysis Launches New Data Product Addressing Parts Produced by Additive Manufacturing

Industry analyst firm SmarTech Analysis today announced a new data product geared towards addressing the critical metric of additively manufactured parts produced. The Additive Manufacturing Applications Market Analysis Report is a first of its kind analysis looking into how the world’s users of both private and publicly accessible additive manufacturing machines are being utilized by providing a market forecast and valuation on the market value of top applications in the world of additive manufacturing in professional and industrial use environments.

The data is set to be released the week of October 21^,2019. You can learn more here.

About the Report:

This database and study tracks and reports on volumes of additively manufactured parts being produced today across numerous key industries, including parts produced by various AM service providers as well as private OEMs and suppliers in each market, split amongst the currently identified and expected future leading use cases for various AM technologies.

Users of this report and database will have access to forecast projections and current-day estimates of the volumes and total market value of all parts produced via AM in a given industry, within various print technologies, material types, and, most importantly, part functionality and type. Those stakeholders with an interest in evaluating various key use cases for specific types of AM technology, AM materials, or broader end-user markets, will be able to utilize this database to help identify market strategies to guide product development and go-to-market in the ever growing world of additive.

“As the additive manufacturing business moves towards more wide-spread production basis, it is crucial for stakeholders to be able to identify addressable markets and implement strategies to guide product development and drive go-to-market efforts, so says Scott Dunham, VP of Research at SmarTech Analysis.” “This unique data product was developed to support clients looking for deeper reporting and analysis of machine outputs beyond simple prototyping, tooling and parts metrics.”

SmarTech has previously provided opportunity analysis in the areas of sales of additive manufacturing systems, additive manufacturing materials, software, and outsourced production services. This database and report expand the universe of market opportunity analysis for additive manufacturing to cover the total and forecasted addressable markets for specific additively manufactured parts and part categories.

The database includes, but is not limited to, the listing of specific coverages for part and part categories shown in the table below. Each of these areas and more are tracked and forecasted by individual supporting print technology, material type, and region.

The database can be purchased as a complete unit or via individual verticals listed below:

Aerospace
Automotive
Consumer Goods
Dental
Energy
General Industry
Medical
Others

3DPrint.com is an equity owner of Smartech.

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Hybrid Manufacturing: Opportunities for Additive Manufacturing and CNC Companies

“Hybrid Manufacturing Markets: Opportunities for Additive Manufacturing and CNC Companies”, a new report from SmarTech Analysis, digs down into the market for hybrid manufacturing systems, which combine AM with subtractive manufacturing on a single platform. Hybrid machines are typically large-format machines utilizing high-volume additive processes such as DED and WAAM. But there are PBF and even FDM hybrids too.

This new SmarTech report shows how the market for hybrid manufacturing machines is driven by both their multi-functionality and their promise of cost-effectiveness. Hybrids can enable repairs of parts, process hard-to-cut, and high-hardness materials, and also provide post-processing capabilities. Some hybrids can also print multiple materials in one build. With regard to cost-effectiveness, there are potential cost savings on hardware and operational cost improvements through less need to move the part in process.

In the report SmarTech estimates that hybrid printers will generate $155 million in sales in 2019, growing to $424 million by 2025. Materials (mostly metals) consumed by hybrid machines will reach $24 million in 2019. By 2025, materials usage by hybrids will have grown to over $240 million.

“We believe the hybrid manufacturing business is a sizeable opportunity not just for firms that make big AM machines, but also for companies whose home is in the CNC space,” says Lawrence Gasman, President of SmarTech Analysis and author of the report. “Our market estimates, seem to confirm this belief. The AM market continues to grow faster than the CNC business, so is an attractive opportunity for the machine tool firms,” continues Gasman.

The Mazak INTEGREX i-400 AM combines a five axis machining with laser cladding.

Among the firms with roots in CNC that have entered the hybrid business are Diversified Machine Systems, DMG Mori, ELB-Schliff, Hermle, Ibarmia, Mazak, Mitsui Seiki, Okuma, and WFL Millturn. The hybrid activities of all of these firms are profiled in the SmarTech study along with profiles of long-time AM firms who now offer hybrids, such as GE Additive, Matsuura, Optomec, OR Laser and Trumpf.

The report also notes that hybrid manufacturing is dominated by aerospace applications. For example, according to press reports, GE is planning to utilize hybrid manufacturing for the production of 25,000 LEAP engine nozzles. However, hybrid is moving into other areas including automotive, oil and gas, construction and even the medical and dental sectors. In oil and gas, for example, hybrid technologies could serve to provide efficient on-demand manufacturing in remote locations—such as ocean-based oil and gas extraction platforms. According to the SME organization about 6 percent of all medical 3D printing already uses hybrid machines and the SmarTech report provides some examples of where this is already happening.

Of course, as SmarTech points out in its report, hybrid manufacturing is not for everyone and there are limits to the hybrid manufacturing market. For example, some potential users are put off by the fact that the additive and subtractive feature of the hybrid machines do not work simultaneously, which some regard as an important inefficiency. Other detractors point to the fact that special training is frequently required for the operators of hybrid machines. Learn more here.

For more details contact: Rob Nolan rob@smartechpublishing.com

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3D Printing News Briefs: August 3, 2019

For this edition of 3D Printing News Briefs, we’re starting off with a celebration – Scansite created 3D printed replicas of the spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Moving on to business and metals, 3D Hubs has hired a new Managing Director for the US, and DigiFabster published a case study. IAM 3D HUB’s newest technological partner is ArcelorMittal, and finally, SmarTech Publishing released some new research on metal powder bed fusion.

Scansite Creates 3D Printed Replicas of Famous Spacesuit

Just over 50 years ago last month, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, and people around the world have been celebrating this important anniversary. In 2015, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum launched a Kickstarter campaign to conserve, preserve, and digitize Armstrong’s spacesuit from that fateful day; this year, to commemorate the anniversary, the museum contacted Scansite to create 15 extremely faithful replicas of the suit for its 50th celebration of the moon landing. The interactive, life-sized “Apollo at the Park” replicas were made to display at 15 MLB ballparks around the US, together with an augmented reality app so visitors can learn important facts about the Apollo 11 moon mission.

“Baseball parks are the perfect venues for new generations to learn more about that summer night on July 20, 1969. The spacesuit replicas allow us to bring a piece of Apollo to Americans everywhere,” said Ellen Stofan, director of the National Air and Space Museum.

Scansite conducted high resolution 3D scanning of the original spacesuit, which was tricky because it features many details and different materials. The company used both a Breuckmann structured light scanner and a Faro touch probe to acquire the scan data, which resulted in a file with over 5.3 gigabytes of data. The data was edited, using surrounding topology of each hole in the information as a guide to fill everything in, and Scansite created a full-scale 3D print of the spacesuit, in 16 separate panels, on a Voxeljet 3D printer out of porous acrylic material. The sections were glued together to create the master model, which was then used to make a mold; finally, each replica was hand-sanded and painted, finished with a tough, autobody clear coat, and mounted on an engraved granite base.

3D Hubs Names Robert Schouwenburg as US Managing Director

Online manufacturing marketplace 3D Hubs announced that Robert Schouwenburg, the former COO & CTO of Shapeways, will be joining the company as its Managing Director for the USA. The company recently announced an $18 million funding round, which it’s been using to expand its team in the US, including opening a new North American headquarters at Chicago’s mHUB. Schouwenburg has over 20 years of experience in the industry, and will be working with the Chicago team to better service the company’s North American customer base, in addition to expanding 3D Hubs’ CNC machining services offering in Chicago.

“We’re at the start of ‘industry 4.0,’ an era when automation and data exchange will accelerate manufacturing technologies, and 3D Hubs is uniquely positioned to become a leader in this upcoming industrial revolution,” stated Schouwenburg.

DigiFabster Helps MakeItQuick Lower Costs and Increase Revenue

3D printing software and services provider DigiFabster recently released a case study about its customer MakeItQuick, a UK 3D printing service bureau. DigiFabster helps machine shops and service bureaus like MakeItQuick generate more new revenue, while lowering the cost of labor-intensive activities such as order entry, project management, and quoting. MakeItQuick teamed up with DigiFabster not long after it launched, and quickly started seeing results – the company was able to reduce quoting costs by up to 95% and order transaction costs by up to 85%. This allowed MakeItQuick to scale quickly and grow their revenues by 25% a month.

“The software handles 90% of our quotes without the need to manually review every part that is submitted. The time savings were immediately evident,” said Marco Massi, the owner of MakeItQuick.

“We save even more once a quote is confirmed. All the order details are at hand, giving us the opportunity to analyze the data and decide on the best way forward.

“In less than a year with DigiFabster, our revenue has grown steadily. We’re now experiencing a 25% monthly revenue increase, paving the way for our future success.”

IAM 3D HUB’s New Technological Partner

The latest technological partner of AM technology incubator IAM 3D HUB is ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s top steel and mining companies. The company, which has a presence in 60 countries and an industrial footprint in 18, will support the Barcelona-based hub with its technologies, materials, and knowledge to allow for new applications of and metal materials for 3D printing. The two share similar objectives, but ArcelorMittal hopes to use its experiences to contribute a new point of view.

ArcelorMittal’s membership in IAM 3D HUB will allow it to develop new metal 3D printing materials, as well as leverage the hub’s end-to-end solutions platform and work with stakeholders. By incorporating this company, the hub is welcoming a new member in the value chain of 3D printing “as a material developer.” It joins technological developers like HP, Renishaw, and Wacker Chemie, strategic partner Fira de Barcelona, and post-processing specialist Abrast by Coniex.

SmarTech Publishing: New Research Note on Metal Powder Bed Fusion

Less than a year ago, 3DPrint.com’s owner, 3DR Holdings, acquired an interest in industry analysis firm SmarTech Markets Publishing, and we continue to have a great relationship. If you’re ever interested in reading the firm’s latest data reports or market studies, you can find them all under the Research tab on our home page. Speaking of research, SmarTech’s VP of Research Scott Dunham, who has prepared the company’s Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders Report for the last five years, recently released a research note on metal powder bed fusion, titled “Who Will Win (and Who Will Lose) the Metal PBF Marathon?”

“Despite what headlines, technologists, and marketing executives would have you believe, the metal 3D printing “race” is a marathon, not a sprint. To continue with the metaphor, we’re probably in about mile 10 of the race today –certainly not at the beginning anymore, but also quite a long way from the end. We are now about twenty three years since the first commercial metal powder bed fusion (PBF) systems came into view,” Dunham wrote.

“With so many closely comparable suppliers of metal PBF equipment now vying for market share, this begs the question, who has what it takes to make it? Everyone in the race today is working toward similar visions of an “Industry 4.0” future that hinges on metalworking going fully digital and highly automated from end to end, from prototyping all the way up to scaled production, with varying levels of customization capabilities based on industry needs along the way.”

Dunham goes on to list some of the technology’s “standout traits,” and names the company’s predictions on how the metal PBF race will turn out: which companies will be the front runners (EOS, GE Additive, Trumpf).

To learn more, check out SmarTech’s recently published “Powder Bed Fusion Markets, A Metal Additive Manufacturing Market Analysis.”

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The post 3D Printing News Briefs: August 3, 2019 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Interview With SmarTech’s Scott Dunham on the Additive Manufacturing Metal Powders Research

For the past five years, Scott Dunham has been preparing the Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders Report for SmarTech. SmarTech, part-owned by 3DPrint.com, is the only analysis and research firm that is focused on the Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing market. With the release of the new Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders Report, we thought we’d delve into the report to share some of Scott’s findings and methodologies.

The report focuses on Powder Bed Fusion, Directed Energy Deposition, and Binder Jetting metals. It goes into the major players in each segment and catalogs mayor market events over the past year. Another section looks at standards formation, M&A activity as well as investments and things such as VC activity. It catalogs leading companies in metal printing and looks at the overall competitive landscape. It delves deeper at industrial use of metal 3D printing and looks at key trends in the industry. Through interviews and surveys, industry participants help identify key trends in the industry.

Things such as customer openness, competency, and spare parts are some of the elements the report looks at more in-depth. Things such as the industrialization of Powder Bed Fusion, increases in machine costs, process parameters, and market share are shared. For Directed Energy Deposition things such as the repair market, adding other AM processes to DED business units and segmentation are looked at. The growth in the binder jetting part of the market is revealed. Trends and drivers in metal powders are cataloged as well. Sales channels for powder, demand for custom alloys, and long term supply are discussed. The overall market growth in 2018 is shared, as are the differences across regions and new developments.

Scott says that the primary audience for this report is “business unit or business line managers of companies in metal powders or machine OEMs, or those companies that wish to enter the market. Consultancy firms, analysts, financial analysts, and business development people also make up a strong contingent of customers. One surprisingly large group of customers is researchers at research institutes and universities.”

Different customers have different motivations for buying the report. With prices starting at $5000 a copy it often requires a degree of interest or investment in 3D printing metals to consider it.

“Researchers and academics, for example, will use it to identify problems that do not yet have solutions or where adequate solutions have not yet been commercialized. For startups, it is used by the whole team to validate business cases and plans. For large teams at industrials or other multinationals, the entire product team would get a license to accompany their evaluation of the market. A business unit leader elsewhere may be very interested in drivers, market outlook, and developments. Consultants will use the report to get up to speed on 3D printing in relevant client engagements. OEMs and powder companies like to be abreast of the latest developments but also use it to benchmark themselves, measure unit performance, establish performance goals, and goal setting.”

Scott considers the Fifth Additive Manufacturing Metal Powders report to be a “full resource on metal additive manufacturing.”

“As per all of the powder based technologies, we provide a guide and detailed analysis based on dozens of interviews and many more surveys of market participants. Why should you trust us? We were the first to offer a market research report focused on powder processes. Over the five years, we’ve refined it, learned and sifted through a lot of data to make it more accurate and usable for customers. At SmarTech, we only do Additive Manufacturing; for us, this is not a part-time thing, but a complete focus for us as a business. This lets us build up and sharpen our knowledge. The effect is that our reports gain in useful information and in depth. The specific expertise and research we do let us make a more solid report than other firms that may have the same people cover IoT, the cloud, or other subjects. Additive Manufacturing is a fast growing, very competitive industry that deserves full time committed analysts, not tourists.”

With regards to specific trends Scott points out a “few soft last quarters” that are due to many factors, but one is the increasing complexity of implementations while others is a gulf between what is promised and what is achievable.

“The promise and hype of binder jetting has also given some customers some pause with powder bed fusion implementations. The landscape can be very confusing for new market entrants, and some decisions are tough to make and require technical expertise and understanding that new entrants often don’t have.”

He goes on to say, “the market is strengthening this quarter, and we are seeing a rapid rate of change in the industry.” Interested? Download the SmarTech Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders report here.

3DPrint.com is part owner of SmarTech.