Information, DfAM and Defence dominated the predictions made by these AM specialists at first of 2024.
And whereas all of them proved to be key themes for the 12 months, they weren’t essentially what grabbed the headlines.
Developments in defence will all the time show newsworthy, however progress in knowledge and DfAM, for instance, usually tend to happen quietly within the background.
As a substitute, what pulls within the viewers continues to be product launches, market consolidation and business insights. The 12 months wasn’t wanting these. As we mirror again on the final 12 months, it has been a topsy-turvy time. Some within the business have been constructing momentum, others have been uncertain they’d make it via the 12 months, and each occurred to be true of 1 AM model which was all however useless in the summertime and introduced again to life within the winter.
By the 12 months’s finish, printed components have been getting larger, workforces smaller, and discourse even richer. How is it this know-how spawns as many believers as naysayers, as a lot hope as cynicism, as a lot hypothesis as inevitability? The way forward for the business – if it ought to even be known as that – is unsure, however there stays loads to be assured about on the subject of the know-how.
Month by month, that is TCT’s round-up of one other eventful 12 months in additive.
January
Business improvement: Desktop Steel lays off 20% of workers in newest value discount plan
Off the again of an unsuccessful merger with Stratasys in 2023, Desktop Steel introduced one more discount in measurement – its third since going public in 2020. This time, the corporate let go 20% of its workforce as a part of a 50 million USD value discount plan.
Business improvement: Velo3D receives non-compliance discover from NYSE
Product launch: RIC Know-how launches new automated robotic arm building 3D printer
Business improvement: GKN Aerospace invests £50 million to develop sustainable 3D printing facility in Sweden
Although the primary month of the 12 months already introduced with it indicators that many AM corporations have been in for an additional difficult 12 months, there have been various brilliant spots. GKN Aerospace was a type of balancing the dangerous with the great, because it introduced a 50 million GBP funding in 3D printing know-how.
Mergers & acquisitions: Align Know-how completes €79m acquisition of Cubicure
Know-how launch: MIT researchers reveal fast liquid metallic 3D printing method
February
Insights: Interim CEO Brad Kreger on the potential sale of Velo3D
After Velo3D was hit with one other noncompliance discover in January, the corporate discovered itself amidst extra issue. With Brad Kreger appointed as CEO within the wake of founder Benny Buller’s departure, he spoke to TCT about the way forward for the corporate, together with whether or not a sale was on the playing cards.
Product launch: 3D Techniques introduces “business’s first” multi-material, one-piece jetted denture answer
Again when SPAC public listings have been all the fashion within the AM sector, Essentium tried and did not go public; its enterprise mixture with Atlantic Coastal was terminated simply two months after the deal was agreed in February 2022. Two years on, with Essentium now a Nexa3D firm, founder Blake Teipel was capable of reveal the hows and whys of Essentium’s botched public itemizing.
Software: Lincoln Electrical to additively manufacture massive metallic propulsion components for the US Navy
Software: Pentagon to buy 3D printed rocket motors from Ursa Main
March
Business improvement: GE Aerospace declares extra additive manufacturing investments as $650m pumped into international manufacturing websites
Following GKN Aerospace’s massive funding in AM, GE Aerospace was to not be outdone. The corporate has pioneered the profitable adoption of metallic additive within the aerospace sector, and is pumping many extra hundreds of thousands in to make sure it would not lose momentum.
Mergers & acquisitions: Stratasys acquires Arevo carbon fibre 3D printing IP to advance FDM providing
Software: BMW plans to make use of wire arc additive manufacturing for car manufacturing
Business improvement: Lockheed Martin leads $12.5M seed funding in Firestorm Labs
Insights: Additive manufacturing in defence – 5 issues we learnt from the 2024 AMADS Convention
In a fraught geopolitical local weather, consideration is more and more turning to additive manufacturing to beat provide chain challenges, enhance efficiency and cut back turnaround occasions. On the 2024 Additive Manufacturing for Aerospace, Defence and Area Convention in Bristol, UK, that enhanced curiosity was on present for all to see.
Podcast: #171 How 3D printing allows the designs of Ursa Main Applied sciences’ rocket engines
April
Business improvement: GE Additive rebrands as Colibrium Additive; Idea Laser & Arcam manufacturers to be retired
Product launch: Formlabs unveils next-generation Kind 4 3D printer sequence
That elevated curiosity in additive from the defence sector was already yielding output, as Lincoln Electrical and the US Military Corps proved with this 12-foot lengthy ship arrestor system element – the most important US civil works infrastructure element to be manufactured with 3D printing.
Product launch: UltiMaker launches Issue 4 3D printer ‘constructed for manufacturing facility ground’
Business improvement: Sintavia invests $25 million in Florida metallic additive manufacturing facility
By means of the doorways: 3T AM | ‘Our philosophy is that AM prints a billet and then you definately make components.’
A lot is made concerning the economics of AM, the repeatability of 3D printing processes, and the problem of getting a return in funding. However do producers must assume otherwise about the place 3D printing sits within the manufacturing worth chain? And the way that impacts their cost-per-part calculations?
Podcast: #178 1000 Kelvin CEO Omar Fergani on the event of an AI-powered co-pilot for AM
Could
Insights: The economics of additive manufacturing are damaged — this is find out how to repair it
Product launch: Eplus3D introduces EP-M2050 metallic 3D printing system with optionally available configuration of 64 lasers
Business improvement: SLS 3D printing agency Sintratec shuts down
A key theme of AM in 2024 was having success and positivity punctured by the stark realities of the business. There could be loads of know-how enhancements, software breakthroughs, and enterprise capital rounds that sparked promise, however once in a while an organization would succumb to the saturation, and inconsistent efficiency, of the market. In Could, it was the tip of the highway for Sintratec.
Software: COBRA Golf unveils LIMIT3D 3D printed metal irons designed in partnership with nTop
Know-how launch: Desktop Steel’s Reactive Security Package allows binder jet 3D printing of titanium & aluminium supplies
Software: BMW 3D printed greater than 400,000 components worldwide final 12 months
After which, a reminder of the place the inherent optimism of the AM sector comes from. An automotive chief nearing half one million manufacturing components in a 12 months – why would not you be assured within the functionality of this know-how?
Podcast: #179 WAAM3D CEO on constructing worth in provide chains with wire arc additive manufacturing
June
Business improvement: Carpenter Additive shuts down UK facility however ‘stays dedicated’ to serving AM prospects
Practically six years after its entry into the UK AM market with its acquisition of LPW Know-how, Carpenter introduced it was pulling away, shutting down its additive manufacturing powders facility in Widnes. It could proceed to serve the AM market, a Carpenter assertion stated, however it was consolidating its manufacturing actions as a part of ongoing efforts to attain leaner operations.
Product launch: WAAM3D launches compact MiniWAAM metallic 3D printer at TCT 3Sixty
Software: Audi Sport reduces design time by 90% with automation of 3D printed jigs and fixtures
3D Techniques might need been rocked by Align Know-how’s acquisition of Cubicure to press forward with its ambitions of additively manufacturing direct aligners, however the main AM firm has ambitions of its personal. On this announcement, it revealed a goal date for when it hopes to commercialise its direct 3D printing know-how for clear aligners as a part of an enhanced know-how roadmap for the dental sector.
Product launch: Colibrium Additive launches Spectra M electron beam melting 3D printer at RAPID + TCT
Business improvement: Desktop Steel declares 1-for-10 reverse inventory cut up
Podcast: #184 TCT 3Sixty 2024: 3D printing launches and additive alternative
July
Business improvement: Shapeways ceases operations and recordsdata for chapter
The three July 2024 might lengthy be remembered as one among additive manufacturing’s vital days, with this story catching essentially the most consideration regardless of huge developments at Nano and BASF. Information of Shapeways’ demise was essentially the most learn article on the TCT Journal web site all 12 months – by a great distance.
Mergers & acquisitions: Nano Dimension to accumulate excellent shares of Desktop Steel; Deal may very well be price as little as $135m
Desktop Steel stated it supposed to stay an impartial firm after the Stratasys merger fell via, however that did not final lengthy. All of the info of its merger settlement with Nano Dimension will be discovered above, with an explainer going into extra element right here.
Business improvement: BASF’s Ahead AM additive manufacturing enterprise carved out & to proceed as impartial firm
Software: NAVSEA to ‘revitalise’ Submarine Industrial Base with assist of HP Steel Jet 3D printing know-how
Past the chaos of July 3, the month may also be remembered for the primary sizzling hearth testing of a computationally engineered engine. TCT had unique media entry.
Mergers & acquisitions: Formlabs acquires SLS 3D printing start-up Micronics
Podcast: #189 CEO Peter Schmitt on Fluent Steel’s single step liquid metallic 3D printing know-how
August
Software: SpaceX simplifies Raptor engine: Has it used additive manufacturing?
Business improvement: Stratasys recordsdata patent infringement lawsuit in opposition to Bambu Lab
What’s a 12 months in AM if one firm would not take one other to courtroom? The business’s newest IP dispute noticed Stratasys file claims in opposition to Chinese language FFF 3D printer firm Bambu Lab, with Julian Asquith, European patent legal professional and Accomplice of Marks & Clerk, offering a view from Europe on this useful article.
Business improvement: Manuevo acquires Shapeways’ property and takes over group and operations in Eindhoven
Know-how launch: Markforged introduces metallic 3D printing functionality to its FX10 platform
Business improvement: Velo3D to make 30% of workforce redundant in effort to cut back prices
The primary of two rounds of redundancies at Velo3D as its struggles to proceed.
Business improvement: Stratasys declares restructuring plans
Business chief Stratasys wasn’t proof against the tough market situations, with the corporate asserting it will make 15% of its workforce redundant by the tip of the 12 months.
September
Mergers & Acquisitions: Nano Dimension to accumulate Markforged
Not happy with the acquisition of Desktop Steel, Nano Dimension noticed a chance to convey Markforged into the fold on the similar time. It got here after Markforged had agreed to pay Steady Composites 25m USD in damages and introduced a 1-for-10 reverse inventory cut up, with CEOs Yoav Stern and Shai Terem telling TCT the mixed firm will change into a ‘materials-oriented’ organisation.
Business improvement: Velo3D inventory to be delisted from New York Inventory Change; Firm to start buying and selling on OTCQX Greatest Market
Software: Carbon DLS 3D printing know-how allows new headrest design for Lotus Principle 1 idea automobile
Software: SpaceX licences Velo3D metallic additive manufacturing tech in $8 million deal
Velo3D continued to stumble via the 12 months, and whereas some had speculated a person of its know-how – like SpaceX for instance – may step in to accumulate the corporate, it as a substitute sought to guard its funding with a $8m licensing deal.
Business improvement: Sandvik exits stake in BEAMIT and refocuses on metallic powders for 3D printing
Software: 3D printing brings A$AP Rocky’s monster Puma shoe to life
Podcast: #197 The Suggestions Loop: An Axtra3D Hybrid PhotoSynthesis deep dive with Toyota & Met-L-Flo
October
Product launch: Bambu Lab delays launch of high-end 3D printer sequence till early 2025
Bambu Lab’s reputation continues to soar, with many customers championing the efficiency of its desktop FFF merchandise. However these ready for the launch of its subsequent product have been compelled to attend till the brand new 12 months as the corporate refused to hurry its ‘high-end’ 3D printer to market.
Business improvement: Velo3D to make extra job cuts earlier than finish of 2024
Product launch: Formlabs launches large-format Kind 4L sequence; opens up SLA & SLS 3D printers to third-party supplies
Whereas Formlabs led this announcement with information of its Kind 4L machine, the largest improvement was in supplies. After 15 years, the corporate was lastly taking away its closed supplies mannequin, opening up its product portfolio to supplies from third-party suppliers.
Software: Subaru adopts HP 3D printing for BOOSTGEAR idea automobile
Business improvement: Protolabs shuts down DMLS 3D printing providers at Putzbrunn website
Podcast: #205 Rob Higham & John Barnes deep dive into metallic powders for additive manufacturing
November
Product launch: 3D Techniques to point out ‘subsequent technology’ SLA and Determine 4 merchandise and extra at Formnext
Mergers & acquisitions: Siemens to accumulate Altair in $10.6 billion deal
Business improvement: Main Minds consortium that includes eight additive manufacturing leaders introduced at Formnext
Eight additive manufacturing corporations celebrated their cooperation at Formnext, with Ansys, EOS, HP, Materialise, Nikon SLM, Renishaw, Stratasys, and TRUMPF set to develop a standard language framework for AM. However will it work? And the way will we be capable of inform?
Software: Harley Davidson Racing group quickens manufacturing and podium finishes with 3D printing
Business improvement: Ahead AM confirms insolvency course of as ‘proactive measure to restructure the enterprise’
Business improvement: Nexa3D disputes chapter claims after Formnext 2024 absence
The hearsay mill was in overdrive at Formnext when it emerged that Nexa3D had pulled out of exhibiting earlier within the month. Rumour would have you ever consider that the corporate was heading for chapter, CEO Avi Reichental had left his publish, and that there have been solely 20 staff left. Nexa3D, nevertheless, refuted all such claims.
Product launch: Farsoon introduces compact FS191M metallic 3D printer
December
Business improvement: The Shapeways model is revived as Manuevo acquires ‘all accessible property’ from trustees
Even in December, the rollercoaster of feelings continued. Shapeways was useless simply 5 months earlier, and whereas phoenix firm Manuevo had secured some bodily property in the summertime, by Christmas it had revived the corporate’s model, web site, and acquired the Thangs 3D file sharing platform from Physna, Inc.
Mergers & acquisitions: Anzu Companions agrees to accumulate Voxeljet in €20m deal; go-shop interval permits firm to pursue different consumers
Product launch: Renishaw launches RenAM 500D twin laser metallic 3D printer
Mergers & acquisitions: Hexagon set to accumulate 3D Techniques’ Geomagic portfolio for $123 million
3D Techniques is as soon as once more divesting a good portion of its firm because it locations its concentrate on core additive manufacturing companies. This time, Hexagon is on the entrance of the queue to combine the Geomagic portfolio, with Hexagon interim CEO Norbert Hanke suggesting the acquisition will ‘additional strengthen our market management in 3D metrology and reengineering.’
Podcast: #214 AM in 2024: Bankruptcies, mergers and elevated funding in automotive, aerospace & defence
