Additive Manufacturing

This solution fosters innovation, efficiency and sustainability by reducing material waste, enabling rapid prototyping and enhancing customisation capabilities. This process involves building three-dimensional objects layer by layer instead of traditional subtractive manufacturing methods.
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Technology Life Cycle

Technology Life Cycle

Maturity

Sales growth slows as the market becomes saturated. The technology is well-established and competition peaks, leading to price drops and marginal improvements.

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

Prototype Demonstration

Prototype is fully demonstrated in operational environment.

Technology Diffusion

Technology Diffusion

Early Majority

Adopts technologies once they are proven by Early Adopters. They prefer technologies that are well established and reliable.

Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing, often called 3D printing, empowers manufacturers to streamline production processes, saving time and resources. This solution involves building three-dimensional objects layer by layer, as opposed to traditional subtractive manufacturing methods, which involve cutting away material.

This process is especially critical in rapid prototyping, short-run manufacturing, and on-demand production, promoting agility and reducing lead times. Additionally, it fosters innovation by making it feasible to create intricate, lightweight structures that were previously impossible to manufacture.

Additive manufacturing starts with a digital design, which is then sliced into numerous cross-sectional layers. The technology then precisely deposits material layer upon layer, gradually forming the final product. This approach offers significant advantages, such as reducing material waste, enabling complex geometries, and enhancing customisation capabilities. While Polylactic Acid, commonly known as PLA, is the most used filament in 3D printing due to its inexpensiveness, durability and dimensional accuracy, possibilities are emerging in other industrial materials, such as metals, glass, cement and ceramics.

Future Perspectives

Driven by the use of analytics and big data, businesses would offer products and services for specific personal needs stored in the cloud. In addition, consumers would be able to better control the use of their personal data and have an active voice during negotiations. In the shipping industry, this sort of data could prevent unnecessary deliveries, performing only ones that will actually be accepted with good profit margins. With this technology, market engagement would reach a very high state of awareness.

Thanks to the immense amount of data provided by each consumer, it will be possible to use algorithms that actually predict what a given demographic group would like to buy before anyone in that group actually becomes aware of that demand.

Image generated by Envisioning using Midjourney

Sources
How it works, its biggest advantages, and which industries it could disrupt.
Siemens unlocks the true potential of Additive Manufacturing with an accessible, cloud-based platform providing networking tools to build your AM future on a solid platform.
Additive manufacturing (AM) or additive layer manufacturing (ALM) is the industrial production name for 3D printing, a computer controlled process that creates three dimensional objects by depositing materials, usually in layers.
Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a process used to fabricate a physical object from a three-dimensional (3D) digital model, typically by laying down and bonding a large number of successive thin layers of materials.
The heist at the center of the 2018 ensemble comedy movie Ocean’s 8 required the protagonists to switch valuable jewels for 3-D-printed copies. “Replicators,” which generate food or tools from basic raw materials, have been a staple of science fiction in film and TV for generations. Yet while Hollywood has been quick to seize on the potential of additive manufacturing (AM), these technologies have been slow to find their blockbuster applications in real-world manufacturing.
MIT researchers have developed a system that can 3-D print the basic structure of an entire building.
Learn how additive manufacturing it works, how it’s used in factories across the world, and how it’s changing the landscape of manufacturing.
Colibrium Additive, a GE Aerospace company, leads the additive manufacturing industry with innovative technology in metal 3D printers, additive powders, and services.
Production Replicability 4.0 - Courtesy of Additive Manufacturing. Re-defining replicability of products and production for Industry 4.0.

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2011 — 2024