Seven-year industry-research partnership launched as the Western World looks to regain its AM mojo

APAC and applications are big parts to the current additive manufacturing story, attendees at a launch event for the new Additive Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre heard last week.

The AM CRC is a seven-year effort expected to invest over $250 million developing “a world-class additive manufacturing ecosystem” in this nation. 

Keynote Terry Wohlers, founder of Wohlers Associates (part of standards organisation ASTM since 2021) and a well-known industry analyst, recapped some of the findings of his annual Wohlers Report. 

In the last 15 years, the industry averaged 22 per cent annual growth. Last year? A little over 9 per cent, reaching $US 22 billion. 

“APAC, this region grew by 31 per cent. If you look at Europe and the US… they declined,” Wohlers (pictured) explained. 

“And APAC more than made up for it. So you’re a part of it. That’s the good news. The maybe less-than-good news is China makes up the lion’s share of that.”

Applications made up $US 3.7 billion of the $US 22 billion. 

“And that grew by more than 12 per cent last year,” added Wohlers.

“It’s all about applications. And if you don’t have strong applications you really don’t have an industry.”

He cited AM heatsinks for data centres as one application that could grow meaningfully.

Thermal management is behind Australian success story Conflux Technology, a specialist in heat exchangers for aerospace and elsewhere. Wohlers mentioned that the Geelong-headquartered company recently had a heat exchanger certified to fly on an F-35, and this is expected to happen “relatively soon.”

Another local leader, SPEE3D, had its expeditionary 3D printer’s work highlighted in the form of a transmission mount for a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. 

AM applications – about a million patterns printed a day – have helped make Invisalign both a leader by print quantities and a $US 10 billion business.

Towards the end of the presentation, the topic returned to China, and its uptake of technologies chiefly pioneered in the US and Germany.

“Mostly in the West and in other places in the world we talk about big volumes… The US isn’t even remotely close to China in terms of adoption,” Wohlers explained.

Watch parts in the millions to tens of millions. Tens of millions of footwear parts and hundreds of millions for automotive. Tens of thousands of moulds for tyres.

BLT (Bright Laser Technologies) alone made 1.5 million titanium hinges for OPPO mobile phones, said Wohlers, with the company boasting a bank of over 400 large metal AM systems, 400 CNC machines for processing parts, and its own powder atomisers.

Another company, desktop printer maker Bambu Labs – only five years old – might be the largest AM company in the world by revenue.

China has famously cornered the global market for things like batteries and their ingredients, and for rare earths and other materials critical for advanced industries. AM, where it once lagged, appears to be heading in a similar direction. 

An AMT Research analyst wrote earlier this month that China has bought up almost half the world’s laser powder bed fusion machines, its domestic AM market grew at a CAGR of 27 per cent in the last five years (more than double the global average), and was made a national priority in the 2021-2025 Five-Year Plan.

The keynote affirmed that it’s definitely not time for the rest of the world to give up, but there’s serious ground to be made up.

For consortia like the new AM CRC — linking 13 universities, the CSIRO, and approximately 60 industry and membership organisation partners – there will be high-value niches to identify and ply. 

“This is the state of the industry, and China now is in the lead,” said Wohlers. 

“The West… we really pioneered it. We invested in it. And we now have this to consider.”

Editor’s note: @AuManufacturing attended the launch events as a guest of the AM CRC.

Picture: credit AM CRC 

Further reading

$250 million-plus Additive Manufacturing CRC launched at Boeing

Global market for additive manufacturing grew 19.5 per cent in 2021: Wohlers Report

Albanese government commits $158 million to back three new CRCs

Ten-year CRC for manufacturing regenerative therapies awarded $65 million

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