In my last several offerings of thoughts on additive manufacturing, I shared some economic perspectives for AM disruptions, some rationales of the AM expensiveness, and some wild guesses on the near future of AM price & cost. AM technology is evolving fast in many ways, and so many passionate & talented people are working hard every day on pushing the limit of this technology (I have met and talked to many on LinkedIn and I am continually being amazed by their achievements). Every step matters, some can be strategically important in the long run, but the other, if happens, might make huge noise for current applications and markets. If you are a technology manager or R&D leader with limited resources on hand, how would you plan the spending budget on different AM projects for the next several years, or

Why or why not priorities certain AM development needs over the others?

This is another question I were asked several times in delivering AM insights to stakeholders of my research. I spent quite several minutes making a list on the scene and tried to “finding” (or creating 😊) a logic behind it (“I am not sure” may not be an affordable answer especially for presentations for my Ph.D. qualify or defense). At that moment, I was less experienced with thoughts that were ill-structured. I believe you would laugh at my old answers if you heard them (because I do, I won’t write down here due to embarrassment, but contact me if you really really want to have this joy). With ages building on, I think I may do better now or at least I know the mighty answer of “it depends”. If I were able to choose what current AM developments to be invested, my first priority would be

AM design and the tool/software used for designing

I will explain why from the economic perspective that I shared with you before. Candidates for such questions can be many since AM is developing in different disciplines. I found some good resources with thoughts about the development trends from many experts (Michael Petch interviewed AM CEOs and experts for 2018 trend on 3dprinting.com, Duann Scott’s thought from Autodesk, and Gartner Inc’s prediction). In order to save your time reading them all, I summarize a list from those resources for the AM developments in the near term that mentioned by experts from different background:

Although those experts can only speak for what they are representing, I believe a collective view of the list may not be that subjective. Interestingly, most of those development candidates are directly about the process (automation, productivity, cheaper machine, reliability, post-processing, and maybe workflow integration), which indicates a strong need for more work on a better process. But remember what I emphasized in my discussions about delta profit?

Product, product, product!

AM technology or the process determines the bottom line of the delta profit, which is very important for new markets in a longer timeframe. But short-term speaking, a disruptive product with a higher price tag can impact the delta profit more significantly and faster. It would be strategically smart to find the top line first and raise the bottom line later when the technology catches up. Among those candidates of options, only material advancement, design & other software and maybe workflow integration are directly related to the product. Economically speaking, I will put them as my priorities due to their impact on the product and the delta profit.

From the technical aspects, the hurdles and difficulties that need to be overcome for different development vary a lot. Improvement of the cost performance of the material depends on hard science and scalability, which can be extremely difficult and slow. Similarly, process reliability, automation, and productivity enhancement also need a significant amount of work and even rely on the progress of other emerging technologies such as AI, industry 4.0, and laser tech. Reducing machine price may not be that hard and it is happening right now as I discussed in my wild guesses. Similar to develop an improved design tool with a user-friendly interface. If you put those development needs in a matrix combining technical and economic perspectives, four quadrants form: Quick wins (higher impact, lower effort), Major Projects (higher impact, higher effort), Fill-ins (lower impact, lower effort), and long-term vision (lower impact, higher effort):