Is industrial scale AM production limited by vendor lock-in?

At the end of last year, we told you about Essentium’s study on the state of industrial scale 3D printing. According to findings, between 2018 and 2019, the number of manufacturers that were using 3D printing for full-scale production doubled – 40% in 2019 compared to 21% in 2018. Today, the company based in Texas has released some new findings that detail manufacturers’ take on the industrialization of 3D printing. More precisely, the company surveyed 162 managers and executives from large manufacturing companies across the world about their current experiences with 3D printing for production manufacturing in order to draw a clearer picture of their expectations.

The study reveals that virtually all manufacturing executives surveyed (99%) believe an open ecosystem is important to advance 3D printing at scale. Additionally, there were two other trends expressed by manufacturers, the first being that they believe industrial scale AM has the potential to increase revenue for their business (85%), however that their flexibility has been limited by vendor lock-in (22%).

Credits: Essentium

It’s true that the industrial AM market has been dominated by closed systems where customers are locked into manufacturers’ hardware, processes and materials. As the technology obstacles around economics, scale, strength and speed of production have started to fall away, the number of manufacturers using 3D printing for full-scale production has grown, nevertheless many systems have remained closed. In terms of technologies, there are quite a few open FDM systems on the market, the same cannot be said for SLS and SLA solutions. Manufacturers are demanding open ecosystems to overcome system inflexibility and lack of material choice. According to the study, 50% of companies said they needed high quality and affordable materials to meet the growing demand for industrial 3D printed parts.