AUGUST 20228MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSIN MY OPINIONMark Douglass is the Business Development Manager for Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions, responsible for overseeing sales, marketing, partnerships and mergers & acquisitions (M&A); previous to this role he was a member of Lincoln Electric's strategy and M&A team. Prior to Lincoln Electric, he was Vice President, Senior Equity Analyst for Longbow Research, a sell-side equity research firm. Preceding his Wall Street tenure, he was an advanced manufacturing engineer specializing in laser materials processing for Preco, Inc. and Visteon Corporation. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) designation.Additive Manufacturing (AM) is receiving lots of hype these days, as seen in the frequency of articles, social media posts, and online searches, plus high growth rates, massive private and public investments, and soaring company valuations--and deservedly so. It is not every day that a manufacturing technique comes along which not only changes how parts are made but how they can be redesigned or reimagined for dramatic improvements in performance. Supply chains are being reconsidered in light of the possibility of "digital inventory" and "mass customization". And, significantly, AM can be applied across a huge range of materials, i.e., polymers, metals, ceramics, composites, concrete, organic tissue, as well as sizes--from microns to meters.In the world of industrial manufacturing, early growth came with polymer-based AM (or 3D printing as many call it) as engineers used the technology for 3D printing prototype parts. As software becomes more sophisticated and systems more user-friendly, polymer 3D printing exploded. While useful, these printers produce relatively low-value components. On the heels of the successful introduction of polymer-based AM, engineers and scientists began developing metal-based AM processes to produce not only prototypes but also functional components of significantly higher value than polymer. According to the AMPOWER Report 2021, the polymer AM market is 2.5x larger than metal though metal is growing faster with an expected CAGR of just under 30 percent in the next 5 years. The lion's share of metal AM growth is due to powder LARGE-FORMAT METAL AM COMING OF AGEBy D. Mark Douglass, Business Development Manager, Additive Solutions, Lincoln Electric [NASDAQ:LECO] D. Mark Douglass
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