Additive Manufacturing application database

Which Additive Manufacturing applications are successful?

Browse through sample applications for a wide range of Additive Manufacturing technologies, materials and industries. See real use cases with industrial relevance that already entered production. Understand the background of Additive Manufacturing applications that generate added value for the user.

What you will find in this report section

Application catalogue
Early adopters
Fields of application
Success factors for applications
Summary of successful applications

Application Catalogue

Browse through over 80 Additive Manufacturing applications

Browse through real industrial Additive Manufacturing applications for a wide range of technologies, materials and industries. View real use cases with industrial relevance that already entered production.

Open the Additive Manufacturing Application Catalogue

Early adopters

Additive Manufacturing applications of early adopters

The early adopters of Additive Manufacturing for end-use parts mainly belong to the medical, aviation, turbine as well as oil & gas industry. In medical applications metal Additive Manufacturing was first used for fabrication of endoprostheses and dental restorations.

The aviation industry fabricates hinges, brackets and interior components. They target parts of the fuselage with a weight optimized design for better fuel efficiency. Another application group are engine components such as turbine blades or fuel nozzles. In the oil & gas industry, metal Additive Manufacturing enables simplified manufacturing of pumps, turbomachinery or valves.

The Additive Manufacturing technology represents an added value for all the applications mentioned above. This is due to several characteristics that these industries have in common. In all applications, only small lot sizes are required while the fabricated parts are high value components. Also, mostly high-end materials are used such as titanium or nickel-based alloys.

The direct transfer of raw materials into complex 3D geometries without the need for creating a tool allows significant time and cost savings. Furthermore, due to the freedom of design AM offers, geometries can be produced that were so far only feasible with high effort. Examples are cooling channels close to the surface of molds, porous structures for bone ongrowth, lightweight bionic structures with complex freeform surfaces.

In the dental industry the application of Additive Manufacturing is of great benefit resulting in a completely digital process chain and significant cost savings. This success story is hidden and not well-known beyond the dental industry. Digital data generated indirectly from dental imprints or directly from the mouth situation of a patient allows design of patient-specific devices such as dental copings. These small, thin-walled parts are cost-efficiently 3D printed using CoCr alloys.

Image courtesy of GE Aviation

Fields of applications

The four categories of Additive Manufacturing applications

In general, Additive Manufacturing applications can be distinguished in four categories. The first category is the field of spare part supply in order to improve service and aftermarket. Companies are often committed to ensure spare part supply decades after end of production. This can be challenging since normally multiple spare part variants exist. Permanent storage of all variants as well as their tools leads to high storage cost. Manufacturing of spare parts on demand conventionally may cause long delivery times. By application of Additive Manufacturing, enterprises can ensure the availability of spare parts at reduced lead times and costs and gain a competitive advantage.

Prototyping, as the original Additive Manufacturing application, represents the second field of application. The fast production of prototypes is still playing an important role in the field of research and development. Prototypes can be used for functional testing or any kind of mock-ups.

The tooling industry is a third business case for Additive Manufacturing applications. It benefits from reduced lead time of tooling production and enables quick iterations of existing tool designs. Thus, it allows tooling design cycles to keep pace with product design cycles. Moreover, Additive Manufacturing offers nearly unlimited options to improve tool designs. Tools that are composed of sub-components can be manufactured in one part, hence minimizing the effort of assembling the tool. Apart from this, the possibility to include complex features supports a faster production of highly functional end parts.

Within the fourth field of Additive Manufacturing applications – improvement of end parts – the performance of products is enhanced. This may be with regard to weight, specific mechanical properties or by integration of new functionalities. For example, flow-optimized and light-weight valve blocks reduce the pressure drop, which in return may lead to use of a smaller pump and save system cost. Similarly, AM cooling plates increase heat dissipation and may yield secondary system cost saving effects.

Success factors for applications

Added value and commercial feasibility lead to successful applications

Added Value
A major success factor for Additive Manufacturing applications is the added value, which in many cases is created by solving pain points. An example are internal cooling channels for mold inserts. With traditional cooling channel design a uniform temperature across the mold is challenging. Additive Manufacturing enables the design and fabrication of conformal cooling tools and improved temperature control. This enhancement even justifies higher cost for the mold, because the cycle time for the molding process can be significantly reduced and part quality increased.
Cost and commercial feasibility
Cost reduction is a critical success factor. While sometimes the initial manufacturing cost may be higher, the total cost of ownership is reduced by Additive Manufacturing in many known applications. Reduction of assembly cost or fuel efficiency are typical examples. Due to the fast development of metal AM technologies further decreasing in manufacturing costs will further strengthen the cost competitiveness of AM.
Barrier of change
Additive Manufacturing applications that are technically and commercially feasible may fail due to company or industry related barriers. Examples are established traditional supply chains or a low customer readiness. Also, internal barriers in quality management, sales or product development can hinder a successful adoption.
Technical feasibility and the right technology
Over 18 different metal Additive Manufacturing technologies are currently known. The choice of the right technology for an application and the proof of technical feasibility are the most critical success factors.
Know-how and commitment
Successful Additive Manufacturing applications are based on profound technology knowledge and years of experience in this field. Management commitment for a long-term approach is as important as the commitment of the technical staff to continuously increase their knowledge in this field.

Summary of successful applications

What do successful metal Additive Manufacturing applications have in common?

Early movers of successful Additive Manufacturing applications have in common, that they originate from high end and high value component manufacturing. Typical examples are the medical, aviation, turbine, space as well as oil & gas industry. A little later, the machine industry became aware of the potential for metal Additive Manufacturing, too. Especially the tooling industry and special machinery in high-end segments are promoting the development of metal Additive Manufacturing applications.

With the development of more cost-efficient technologies such as Binder Jetting or Metal FDM we expect the field of metal Additive Manufacturing applications to rapidly increase in the automotive and consumer industry. Applications will be driven less by high-end performance but rather by the advantages of a short lead time, low changeover cost and high freedom of design at a large variety of geometries.

Image courtesy of Renishaw

Data and sources

Last data update: 15 March 2025

Source: AMPOWER

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Table of Contents 2025

15. March 2025

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