3D Metal Printing: Dark Art or Modern Blacksmith?

Report Highlights

The 3D metal print industry anticipates that solutions to obstacles faced by the metal additive manufacturing (AM) are ready to galvanize a ten-fold increase in AM-produced metal products by 2021.
Metal products produced by additive manufacturing had a value of about $210 million in 2016, a fraction of the $10-plus trillion global manufacturing market. By 2021, BCC Research predicts new SLM software, alongside consistent optimized powders, could drive this figure just more than $2 billion.

Report includes

• Analysis of the development of product qualification, certification method, and protocol that will be essential to replicable product characteristics.
• Insight into why improved process control software is needed to ensure consistent production of parts.
• Details on gas atomization optimization of metal powders tailored for AM.
• Details on improved beam control and in-process data gathering for SLM approaches.

Analyst Credentials

Chris Spivey has been Senior Editor at BCC Research for seven years, during which time he has directly overseen the publication of over 500 market research reports. He is the Cofounder of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) and has co-authored half a dozen scientific papers (in the field of Advanced Wavefront Transforms and Adaptive Optics). He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Chris has served as conference chair for a wide variety of sub disciplines: from Human Genetic Variation and Microarrays, to Gene Quantification and Biotech Startup Funding and Management. His consulting work includes Bulk Hetero-Junction CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells, Spinel LiMn2O4 as Li-ion Battery Cathode Material, Passivation of Laser Diode Micro Channel Coolers, Nanomaterial processes for Algal Biodiesel Fuel, General Nanoparticle manufacture from a "bottom-up" approach, and most recently modelling algorithms for physical vapor deposition systems.

He is co-author of the BCC Research FLASH reports

• Is NRAM Causing Market Volatility?
• 3D Metal Printing: Dark Art or Modern Blacksmith?

Andrew McWilliams spent more than 25 years as a consultant with Ernst & Young, McKinsey & Company and A.T. Kearny focused on manufacturing before segueing into research analysis. He has been covering myriad technology categories for BCC Research for more than 15 years. McWilliams has a BA from Princeton University and an MA from Harvard University. He has worked in more than 40 countries and he resides in the greater Boston area. His select reports include: Global Markets for 3D Printing (IAS102B), Advanced Materials for 3D Printing: Technologies and Global Markets (AVM101B), Global Markets for Telemedicine Technologies (HLC014H),The Market for Thermal Management Technologies (SMC024K) and Powder Metallurgy: Technologies and Global Markets (AVM007M).