AM Sector Needs Better Economic Language, Says Former WAAM3D CEO
A former CEO of a prominent additive manufacturing company argues that the industry needs to shift its economic focus from machine price to the qualified manufacturing outcome.
Dr. Filomeno Martina, former CEO of WAAM3D, believes the additive manufacturing (AM) sector is not adequately conveying the value of its technologies due to an insufficient economic framework. He suggests that the purchase price of an AM machine is often the wrong unit for economic analysis. Instead, the relevant metric should be the qualified manufacturing outcome that the machine enables.
Martina highlights that a machine might appear inexpensive if it resolves supply chain bottlenecks, drastically reduces lead times, eliminates the need for tooling, facilitates superior designs, lowers inventory costs, or makes previously unmanufacturable parts possible. Conversely, a low purchase price does not guarantee affordability if the machine is underutilized, difficult to qualify, unreliable, poorly supported, or not aligned with genuine production needs.
The challenge lies in the fact that purchase prices are clearly stated on quotations, while the value generated by a machine is application-dependent and harder to quantify. Factors like the customer's production environment, process maturity, qualification requirements, utilization levels, the cost of alternative methods, and the strategic importance of time all influence this value.
Furthermore, Martina points out that AM is not a monolithic market or technology, meaning there isn't a single pricing problem. For Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) or Directed Energy Deposition (DED), a metric like cost per kilogram of deposited and qualified material might be useful, but it needs to encompass deposition efficiency, machining allowance, inspection, shielding gas, consumables, labor, downtime, failed builds, post-processing, qualification, and utilization. Different AM processes, such as laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), polymer AM, and binder jetting, have their own unique economic drivers that dominate their cost structures.
This perspective challenges the conventional focus on hardware cost in additive manufacturing. By emphasizing the 'qualified manufacturing outcome,' it aligns with the industry's push towards high-value applications in sectors like aerospace and defense. This shift recognizes that AM's true value often lies in enabling strategic capabilities like readiness, resilience, and the production of complex, previously impossible components, rather than just a simple cost-per-part metric.
Edited by the news editor with AI from the original report — please refer to the original source.