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3D Printing Industry To Triple In Four Years To $21 Billion (computerworld.com)
Year-over-year the 3D printing industry has grown by as much as 30%. Now, it's set to triple in revenue over the next four years, according to a new report. For comparison, this year the industry will reach nearly $7.3 billion, and by 2020, it is expected to reach nearly $21 billion. Published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and the United Parcel Service (UPS), the study, called "3D Printing: The Next Revolution in Industrial Manufacturing," revealed that the two biggest industries representing a combined 40% of the growth are consumer electronics and automotive. Medical devices will represent about 15% of the growth. North America and Europe will account for more than 68% of the 3D printing market revenue, while the Asia Pacific market will account for about 27% of sales. Here's an impressive stat: 3D printing represents only 0.04% of the global manufacturing market right now. However, if 3D printing captures 5% of global manufacturing capacity, which researcher firm Wohlers Associates believes it will, the industry would be worth a staggering $640 billion. "This is a market ripe for disruption," the report said. "Technology adopters that move beyond prototyping to use 3D printing in supporting and streamlining production can achieve new manufacturing efficiencies. Plus, there is an enormous opportunity for companies that get it right."
In the future, we will 3d-print augmented reality IoT devices and deliver them via drone apps.
How did yours work out for you?
I like the Idea of the 3D Printer. However for the normal consumer what you can make with them isn't worth the price.
In theory I would be able to 3d print replacements parts for many devices. Fix a broken key on your keyboard, Cell Phone Case, Random Decorations...
However the cost of few thousand dollars with the cost of consumables, over a period you expect to use the device say 10 years, you will probably make a couple hundred dollars worth of material.
Now I am not saying 3D printers are useless, they make more sense in Maker shops where they can be used over a long time, as well making objects that are hard to create in low volumes in other ways.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
4 years at 30% growth means you triple...
I guess "it will keep growing as before" doesn't get as many clicks?
"disruption" key word detected, article can be safely ignored
That sounds about right. Demand for Elon Musk branded batteries will skyrocket.
For comparison, this year the industry will reach nearly $7.3 billion, and by 2020, it is expected to reach nearly $21 billion.
That sounds like a lot (and it is) but compared to the overall manufacturing market it's virtually a rounding error. The US manufacturing sector alone is something close to $2 Trillion and the US accounts for something like 17% of global manufacturing. (China is somewhere around $3 Trillion currently and Japan is around $800 Billion) For reference $7.3 billion is just a bit smaller than the total revenue of eBay. Impressive but hardly world shaking.
Here's an impressive stat: 3D printing represents only 0.04% of the global manufacturing market right now. However, if 3D printing captures 5% of global manufacturing capacity, which researcher firm Wohlers Associates believes it will, the industry would be worth a staggering $640 billion.
That's a common argument made to justify silly valuations of new companies and technologies. "If we capture just 1% of this huge market..." while conveniently ignoring how difficult actually doing that will be. Capturing just a few percent doesn't sound like a lot but actually it really is a monumental task. 3D printing has tremendous potential and I expect it to really be a huge deal in the coming years but it's going to be a while before it captures even 1% of global manufacturing, much less 5%.
A lot of manufacturing is not aided at all by 3D printing. For example my company makes wire harnesses. 3D printing is useful in our industry for some fixtures, prototypes and the odd bit of tooling but it's a wildly inefficient way to make a wire harness or any sizeable quantity of the parts that go into one. There are other technologies that are far more cost effective for volume production. That's not to say 3D printing isn't super helpful but it's not even close to replacing even a fraction of a percent of what we do. Same is true for plenty of other manufacturing technologies. 3D printing is great for low volume production and while I expect it to speed up, there are other ways to make things that often are much more economical and/or effective which 3D printing will struggle to displace.
No later than when people start printing spare parts for their car we'll see this whole development grind to a halt. Car manufacturers make a fortune by selling plastic parts costing pennies for double digit dollar amounts. They will not allow you to take that from them.
And they have shown before that they're not above buying laws that protect their business.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That sounds about right. Demand for Elon Musk branded batteries will skyrocket.
OK, if we are talking branding, how is a guy with that name not already selling cologne?
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
people will realize they can print 3d printer parts and the entire 3d printer industry will collapse. ;P
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) are going to continue driving change in manufacturing. DMLS/SLS is effectively building metal/plastic objects by putting down a thin layers of material and melting the parts of each layer you want in the final product. the end result is you can make objects in any shape you want with a tolerance of 100 microns and they are quite robust. a second process is needed to make them nice and shiny objects but when you combine our many three axis tools into a single machine, you end up with a single machine that can go from raw materials to finished product, electronics included. this is the endgame for most of the objects that people buy today and it's going to lay waste to a large segment of manufacturing industry. the good news is that this will advance our recycling efforts as well as the open hardware movement.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
When they can use natural materials which don't fuck up the environment I'll take some notice.
Till then it's crap.
Go well
You'll soon be richer than the few.
I can't wait to get started myself, I have extensive 3D modelling knowledge that comes in handy when it comes to processing the models needed for quality printing and saving on material costs, plus an extensive background in electronics. I can tell you this much - 3D printing will be the biggest industry of our lifetime soon. It's just a matter of time.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
How about "Electric Musk"?
3D printing is very effective for complicated shapes that you can't make with other techniques, or only at very high cost.
No argument except that there are rather few products that fit that description. The percent of products where 3D printing is the most economical method is extremely small in comparison with the size of the the overall manufacturing market.
And while volume for individual products is low, it adds up to a decent combined total, especially when you consider the much higher margins on low-volume items.
Partly correct but I'm not sure you've thought it through entirely. As a general proposition it's pretty cheap for companies to make and store small quantities of products. If someone happens to have a 3D printer capable of printing the material for that specific product then it might make sense but very few will have a 3D printer that can print plastic and another for aluminum and another for steel and etc etc... If the product involves multiple materials, currently 3D printing is immediately off the table in most cases. I expect that will change someday but that day is a long time away still.
3D printing is useful in some specific circumstances but it's been around a long time and it's going to take several more decades to really become mainstream. I was working with 3D printers in my day job 20 years ago. We had some big Stratasys units for doing plastic prototypes. The state of the art has advanced but not as far as many think. It's still very expensive to do production quality products out of a 3D printer and it's useless for volume production.
As for margins, I think I can speak to that. I'm a certified accountant. One mistake people make is in thinking that costs have any relationship to selling price. A customer's willingness to pay doesn't necessarily go up because it costs you more to make it. Just because I can build something for $X doesn't mean I can necessarily sell it for more than $X. Just because something is low volume doesn't necessarily mean the margins are fat on it. I run a manufacturing company that specializes in low volume production and we often run into jobs where there is no margin at all or even negative margin on very small unit volume.
0.01% Hydrazine.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Elon's Musk
Can 3D printers create metal objects? If not CADCAM will continue to dominate when people want to make stuff that actually does useful things. Now a 3D printer that works with molten metal--that would be something.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.