Carried out by a third party administrator, SMS Research Advisors, the survey that investigated the imminent impact of 3D printing on manufacturing provided valuable insight for manufacturing industry professionals in the area of additive manufacturing.

There are many benefits of the technology, but the top few listed by the respondents were added complex design capabilities (79 percent), reduced lead time (76 percent), improved efficiency (42 percent), and integrated parts of higher quality (20 percent).

As with all technology,  notable challenges still exist for industry professionals in using or gaining access to the technology. Listed as the top challenges currently were equipment costs (63 percent), limited materials (54 percent) and post-processing requirements (39 percent). Even in the future, industry professionals still foresee challenges in these as well as manufacturing costs.

However, additive manufacturing is still taking off especially in some areas, such as for the manufacturing of end-use parts. According to Stratasys, driven by aerospace and automotive industries, manufacture of end-use parts are expected to grow by 38 percent by 2018. These industries will also likely improve their in-house additive manufacturing and production capabilities, with an expected 73 percent increase over the next three years.

With the advancement of the industry into additive manufacturing, experts foresee a development of multiple new materials, especially in metals. The use of additive metals are expected to nearly double over the next three years partly due to a move towards improving material properties, said Joe Allison, Stratasys direct manufacturing CEO.

People are starting to realise the great value of the technology—that it can drive real business value, he noted. “I really think that the pace of adoption over the next couple years is going to make it look like the industry was standing still for the last 25 years.”