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Essentium, Inc., a worldwide leader in industrial additive manufacturing (AM), today announced the second in a series of findings from independent global research on the current and future use of industrial 3D printing. The survey found that investments in 3D printing at an industrial-scale are paying off, with companies reporting wide-ranging benefits, including high part performance [46 percent], cost reduction [46 percent], and speed-to-part [45 percent].
Changes over the last year showed 3D printing’s relevance in manufacturing. The AM industry proved it could step in to make quantities of supplies at scale to keep assembly lines moving; it showed 3D printing is ready for prime time. 2021 will mark the year that additive at scale transforms manufacturing across sectors, including aerospace, automotive, electronics manufacturing services, and biomedical.
However, innovation is essential to remove remaining obstacles to AM adoption and help companies manufacture in new ways. Specifically, 98 percent of manufacturing executives see value in improved materials, 37 percent are held back by the high cost of 3D printing materials, and 24 percent said 3D printing materials are unreliable.
Gaining approvals for capital investments will remain a challenge throughout 2021 – 20 percent of executives report that industrial-scale 3D printing hardware is too expensive, and 18 percent indicate they have too much investment in other manufacturing technology.
Essentium remains committed to working in an open ecosystem with its customers to address these challenges, ensuring the right economics for industrial-scale 3D printing and integration with existing machinery and work practices on the factory floor. Essentium is also innovating to provide high-performance and affordable polymers for aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, and tooling applications.
Blake Teipel, Ph.D., CEO and Co-founder, Essentium: “Manufacturing companies have finally cracked the code of AM for full-scale production runs of hundreds of thousands of parts, and there will be no turning back. There is no longer any doubt whether AM investments deserve a central feature in the execution strategies of companies endeavouring to out-perform their peers. By working with our customers to drive innovation, financial, and efficiency benefits, we are helping them move forward into a leaner, more agile future enabled by additive manufacturing.”
essentium.com
About Essentium
Essentium, Inc. provides industrial 3D printing solutions that are disrupting traditional manufacturing processes by bringing product strength and production speed together, at scale, with a no-compromise engineering material set. Essentium manufactures and delivers innovative industrial 3D printers and materials, enabling the world’s top manufacturers to bridge the gap between 3D printing and machining and embrace the future of additive manufacturing. Essentium, Inc. is ISO 9001:2015, AS9100D and ITAR certified.