Essentium, Inc., announced the first in a series of findings from independent global research on the current and future use of industrial 3D printing. The fourth annual study reveals that the use of large-scale AM has more than doubled in the past year for 86 percent of manufacturing companies.
The survey results show that AM is here to stay and has evolved beyond prototyping to become an essential component in the large-scale production of functional parts. The number of companies that have shifted to using AM for full-scale production runs of hundreds of thousands of parts has increased from 14 percent in 2020 to 24 percent in 2021, and only 1 percent use 3D printing for less than 10 parts compared to 17 percent four years ago.
The survey found that the most important drivers for a company’s adoption of 3D printing for large scale production were its ability to:
• Improve part performance [55%]
• Increase design freedom [45%]
• Overcome supply chain issues [30%]
• Lower production costs [24%]