Thinking ahead the Future of Additive Manufacturing – Scenario-based Matching of Technology Push and Market Pull

Abstract

For the last two decades, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been gaining in importance. Once only used for prototyping, AM-technologies are increasingly applied for manufacturing parts which meet the mechanical requirements and can be directly used. This is Direct Manufacturing (DM). To advance AM-technologies into dependable DM-technologies, it is necessary to align the technology development (technology push) with future market requirements on DM (market pull). This is the starting point of the project “Opportunities and Barriers of Direct Manufacturing Technologies”, conducted by the Heinz Nixdorf Institute and the Direct Manufacturing Research Center. The goal is to think ahead success promising applications for DM at the intersection of technology push and market pull. We use the scenario-technique to think ahead future success promising applications for DM within the aerospace, automotive and electronics industry. Based on this, future requirements on DM-technologies, e.g. the build chamber volume of DM-machines, are deduced. Within expert surveys, these requirements and the required advancements of AM-technologies are validated and identified, respectively. Finally, technology push and market pull are synchronized in innovation roadmaps which indicate when the requirements on DM-technologies will have been fulfilled and when the identified success promising applications can be realized.