3D Printing: The Coming Revolution in Manufacturing

3D printing market is expected to grow more than 20 percent annually, reaching $5 billion by 2017, based on estimates from ReportsnReports.com.  The report concludes that plastics will remain as the dominant material used for printing, but that metal printers will be increasingly used.  The most common plastics used for 3D printing continue to be acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), and nylon.  These are some of the simplest materials to work with.  But other materials are beginning to be used which have greater strength and resistance material properties.  The leading areas where 3D printed products will be used are consumer products, automotive and aerospace.

IDC has an even more aggressive forecast for the growth of 3d printing, closer to 30 percent growth annually until 2017.

Keith Kmetz, Vice President, Imaging, Printing and Document Solutions, said that “print is extending beyond output on media to the creation of an actual object, and that presents incredible opportunity.  While traditional print technologies are facing maturity, 3D printers will see worldwide unit shipments grow by 10 times over the forecast period, and worldwide hardware value will more than double in the short term.”

Engineering shops are especially interested in the technology.  3D printing will allow them to more easily prototype parts intended for industrial and enterprise applications, allowing engineers the ability to easily iterate their product designs.  Peter Misek, analyst at Jefferies, said that “we believe 3d printing is expanding into many enterprise verticals where creative professionals are using 3D printers to rapidly iterate their design ideas.  We believe 3D printing will create long-term value by revolutionizing mass manufacturing, but will take some time to develop”

Analysts at Credit Suisse wrote that “we think eventually there could be near ~100% penetration amongst engineers as it becomes a common element of the engineer’s toolkit…The number of registered architects in the US [now stands at 222,500]. We think this represents another potential growth driver, although we acknowledge the computer design proficiency amongst architects is likely lower than among recent engineering graduates.”

Eric Duoss, a materials scientist and engineer at LLNL, said that “it’s going to revolutionize manufacturing.  It’s going to revolutionize it in terms of manufacturing itself. It’s about the ability to tailor properties and achieve property combinations that would have been previously impossible to create.  Hopefully it will be a new way of manufacturing with a lot more possibilities and less cost, time and real estate needed to manufacture things.  The key is that this opens the door for designers to create items that were not possible before.  Engineers and designers would have another set of tools that enable them to be more creative in coming up with a product.”