Roadmap to Developing Your

AM Strategy
This whitepaper looks at how companies can zero in on their business
drivers for additive manufacturing adoption and make them the catalyst
of a successful and sustainable AM strategy that is right for them. In
short, it’s about where and how to start using AM meaningfully.

Produced by a team at Mindware, Materialise’s advisory division, it

represents 30 years of experience in helping turn ideas into products,
applications, business models.

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AM’s gotten serious

Additive manufacturing (AM) has matured significantly as a manufacturing technique over the last
5 years. Along with this, knowledge of AM within companies has increased and its opportunities are
increasingly discussed at board-level.

Time and budget are invested to explore the potential for 3D printing beyond the most obvious
applications. More than ever before, there’s an appetite to take a strategic approach and maximize
the opportunity.

We’ve seen this at Materialise in the last few years. Where, previously, a lot of the interest in AM
came from specific niches within organizations, trying to solve a specific problem in front of them
and nothing more, forward-looking organizations today take the time to look at the bigger picture,
to find the best starting point and develop robust strategies and roadmaps for AM.

Both the bottom-up and the top-down approach have their merits, in fact, combining both
and adding broad and deep knowledge of AM – from design, materials, software, process,
manufacturing to quality control – is the recipe for the greatest success. Navigating all that at the
speed you need requires a method and a structure. Here, we share what that could look like.

First, we’ll give a quick overview of the four main business drivers for AM and the opportunities
offered by additive technology in response to these drivers.

Second, we’ll take a look at a methodology for evolving your AM strategy – where to start, who to
involve, what to focus on.

Finally, we’ll share some tips and learnings from our 30 years in AM.

Business drivers for AM – a typology

Businesses start exploring additive manufacturing technology for different reasons. Broadly
speaking, the outcomes organizations are looking for fall in four categories. Two of these are
shaped by a desire to improve efficiency or mitigate risk in existing business, two are focused more
on unlocking new opportunities through innovation in products and business models. The following
sketches these four drivers, along with some typical AM opportunities.

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1. Operational efficiency

Rising cost pressures and global competition mean businesses are looking for ever more efficient
manufacturing processes through continuous improvement that minimizes waste (both in the
colloquial and the LEAN sense). AM can help achieve this, resulting in higher production output
and reduced maintenance. This is true for businesses that have exhausted all other means of
incremental improvement, as well as those with more room for efficiency gains.

AM offers three key opportunities for operational efficiency:

1. improving the performance of existing manufacturing aids, by making them more fit for purpose,
sturdier, cheaper, lighter, more accurate and/or faster to replace

2. redesigning existing devices for AM and thereby reducing tooling cost

3. improving the performance of a production tool, for example by functionally integrating several
components into one to raise production output and reduce assembly/maintenance costs.

Example: Philips

Philips Lighting saw significant efficiency

improvements on their production line for
light bulbs after introducing a bracket and
a gripper redesigned for AM. The gripper
removed the need for time consuming
manual part placement, the new bracket
replaced a conventionally manufactured
one that broke frequently, requiring
constant repairs and replacements. Philips
estimates that, over the course of a year,
the additive manufactured parts would
save them around €89,000 and significant
operator hours. Additionally, the reduced
weight of the gripper has increased the
speed of movement and thereby reduced
cycle times, enabling an increase in
production.

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 Example: Volvo

Volvo Cars Gent used AM to reimagine a

gluing jig that now combines all previous
components in one fixture, weighs 64%
less and can be delivered in only two
weeks at nearly half the price of the
previous version. The new jig enables
workers on the line to achieve much
tighter tolerances and reduces redo and
scrap rates. It’s also easier to handle and
much lighter.

© Volvo Cars Gent

2. Sustainable supply chains

For businesses looking to future-proof their operations, the driving need is to become sustainable:
in the conventional sense of minimizing negative impact on the planet, but also in the sense of
profitability and continuity of production. This means reducing waste and costs, while producing
responsibly.

AM enables the digitization of supply chains and a decentralization of manufacturing. This can
reduce the total cost of ownership for businesses, by enabling leaner operations and eliminating
stock risk. By producing what is needed, where it is needed, AM enables businesses to reduce waste.

Example: Yuniku

More than 45% of eyewear frames

produced around the world are never
sold. AM helps eyewear brands reconcile
market demands of ‘fast fashion’ with
raising sustainability of manufacturing.
With AM, brands are able to manufacture
on demand, as well as adding further
benefits like Yuniku’s individually tailored
lens placement. This avoids stock risk and
storage cost and prevent huge amounts
of waste.

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3. Market-ready innovation

AM enables faster product development, and consequently a short time to market. This encourages
more iterative product development, which in turn helps businesses increase their market
responsiveness and improves the product.

Rapid prototyping, inexpensive and quick small series production, and an agile manufacturing
process mean both product development supported by AM and the development of AM products
can happen in quick iterations, fast trial and error. Feasibility studies and manufacturing scale-up
can be carried out, planned alongside, and rolled into the product development process.

Example: Samsonite

Samsonite used AM to quickly produce

a high-quality, functional prototype of a
complex new suitcase design that would
later be manufactured using injection
molding. Quick-iteration tests were used to
confirm that the correct level of detail could
be achieved using AM, the texture on the
shell of the case could be applied without
the help of any secondary or manual
processes, and the texture would remain
uniform across curves and angles. The team
then zeroed in on the best way of delivering
the suitcase using a combination of AM
techniques.

A fully assembled prototype was delivered

within only eight working days, from start of
production. It was so close to the ultimate,
injected-molded product that Samsonite
was able to take it to a trade show for early
B2B selling.

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4. New business models

AM offers an opportunity for companies to extend or change their business models, for example by
enabling profitable mass customization or setting up distributed manufacturing networks. This is
the innovation-oriented version of the first point on supply chains made sustainable through AM.

Trend forecasters predict that the customers of the future will look for hyper-customization
combined with ethical and environmental considerations - an opportunity which mass
customization models address. Exploiting these opportunities enables businesses to add value for
the end user and charge a premium for that, as well as serve more niche markets in a targeted way.

The best-known examples for this are in the consumer goods industry (eyewear, footwear) but
equally important are personalized medical device development and industrial applications,
especially in automation.

Example: Schunk

In industrial automation, grippers that

pick and place items in the production line
perform better if they are tailored to the
purpose they serve. But customization
is usually expensive. Schunk, an expert
in clamping technology and gripping
systems uses AM to offer eGrip, a fully
automated design and ordering tool for
custom gripper fingers. Ordered in around
15 minutes, a custom gripper is delivered
within a couple of days, compared to
weeks when using conventional methods.

Where to start, where to go – a methodology

Knowing your drivers for adopting AM is a good starting point for any meaningful use of AM and
for the development of your strategy or roadmap. But, as context and circumstances can change
throughout your AM journey, it’s important to remain open-minded and adopt a methodology that
embraces uncertainty.

What you initially set out to do may not offer the best return of investment, or you might discover
opportunities that open up different paths from what you initially thought. What is key here is
a structure that alternates periods of open-minded exchange with periods of focus on what’s
possible, what’s economical, what’s backed by important stakeholders in your business.

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We’ve worked with countless organizations and helped them find - and choose - a path through
what can seem like endless possibilities. Each journey is different, but successful ones follow a
diverge/converge pattern that can serve as a rough structure or even a methodology, which we call
the Triple E model. This methodology has a proven track record of ensuring companies can reinforce
their business opportunities while lowering their investment risks, by working in a structured way
with the right experts. In the following we share some of the key waypoints, what to do when, what
questions to ask, what to focus on.

Explore: from business trigger to a defined AM strategy

In the beginning, there’s an idea – or not! Let’s explore. If you recognize your organization in one or
more of the categories outlined above, then you already have an idea – either of the challenge you
want to solve or an application for AM in your business. In this case, the first step is to take the time
to interrogate that idea. Deep diving into the business trigger or challenge that you are trying to
solve will ask for some clear understanding. If, for example, performance is your main objective, it’s
crucial to know what that really means to your business and your application. Are you looking to
reduce part weight, or improve lead time?

This could happen in a workshop setting with people from different parts of your business and
possibly external experts, in informal internal conversations or by running it by somebody like us,
the team here at Materialise Mindware.

If you don’t yet have an idea, but – as happens more and more frequently – are starting out simply
with a desire to invest in AM and find an application for it within your business, a similar type of
workshop or idea generation phase is needed. At this point, you’ll explore your AM dream and
start formulating AM applications that could be meaningful for your business. This is where an
external partner can add real value – by looking at your operations as a neutral observer to spot
opportunities specifically for AM. The number of workshops and conversations is entirely scalable
and should match your ambition and the speed with which you want to get either to an application
or an AM strategy. The main aim here is to gain clarity on what you want, where the AM value lies
and where to start.

Depending on how the idea came about and the degree to which exploring AM is already backed
by the business, it can be useful to involve stakeholders that look at AM as an opportunity to create
value, rather than simply reducing cost. This will allow you to find a balance between short-term
and long-term ambitions, between quick-wins and greater returns.

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 Questions to ask

What are we really trying to achieve? What is the actual problem or challenge behind
our initial thinking? Why are we doing this? What gains are we likely to make from our
application idea? How much are we willing to invest? What’s our timeframe? What’s the
level of skills and knowledge of AM in our business?

Learn and scope

The first steps of your project are as much about learning as they are about finding an application.
Whether it’s a workshop, a series of conversations, or a more structured AM assessment aided by
a third party, the better you understand the possibilities of AM, the more likely you are to find the
most suitable applications and the greatest opportunities in your business.

Depending on the business challenge or driver you’ve identified, you may drill down into specific
areas of your operation, have more in-depth chats with, for example, production line people, design
engineers, sourcing, etc. What’s important in this first phase is to scope your dream correctly and
bring in the right AM expertise in order to define your AM and project strategy. Clarity is the key
word!

Questions to ask

Where are the concrete opportunities for AM in our business? Where are the pain points
that are at the heart of the challenge we want to overcome? How could these pain points
translate into AM applications? What are our options when it comes to developing and
delivering these applications?

Short-term triggers versus long-term ambition

AM is here to stay and will evolve further in the coming years. Rather than dabble in the technology
as a one-off for the here and now, it is useful to look at your first steps in AM with the wider
roadmap in mind.

You don’t have to commit to a 5-year plan to do a 3-month project, but it makes sense to think
about the role this first project can play in accelerating your AM journey. Often the success of this
first project is the proof you need internally to show the value of AM. It determines which people
you involve internally and externally, what investment you make, where you look for applications,
and what you consider a positive outcome of the project (for example, upskilling key teams can be
framed as an important result of an early AM project).

On a practical level, a single-minded focus on a pre-determined, short-term goal can stand in the
way of greater gains when the right resources and expertise are not dedicated to this project. For
example, if the initial aim of exploring AM is to just manufacture the same part marginally faster
and marginally cheaper, you may lose the opportunity to exploit some of the key benefits of
additive technology. Investing extra time and a bit of money to properly design the part for AM can
unlock much greater savings.

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An even broader perspective might capture the fact that the part belongs to an assembly that, with
AM, could be integrated into a single part.

None of this means that you can’t achieve great result quickly – just that you shouldn’t rush to
conclusions.

Questions to ask

How do we see AM in our broader company roadmap in the short, mid and long term? Are
we starting with the right project and resources to get the highest rate of success to reach
that AM goal? What is our moonshot? Are we missing something?

Experiment: from strategy to meaningful applications in an agile way

You’ve set an ambition level… well, this is where you start ideating, mapping and prioritizing testing
scenarios in detail. You will carry out basic or detailed feasibility studies and do some initial iteration
design cycles specifically for AM. Once your application or scheme is starting to take concrete
shape, additional partners might be brought on board, designs are finalized, prototypes are
tested, refined and iterated. The crux of this phase is the AM expertise built into this prototyping
and testing phase as well as the agile way of iterating. Don’t spend too much time on the perfect
solution in this phase but use that time to quickly test different options and continuously improve
the ones with the best results.

Questions to ask

Does it work as we thought it would? Can we make it in the way we thought we could?
Which AM technology being best suited to the application? How can we test the value that
we want to get from our AM application? Do we have everything in place? Do we need to
make any adjustments?

Zero in, build the case

Once testing is done it’s time to evaluate the application on a product level as well as to look at the
economics, do the math and validate the application with the market.

Early forays into AM in the past may have skipped this step, a key reason for bad experiences and
disappointing outcomes. It’s an opportunity to back up your project with numbers before taking it
further, to build a strong business case.

An integrated, holistic approach at this stage ensures you get off to the right start and have a clear
and robust case going forward. It’ll allow you to rule out paths (on technical, economical or practical
grounds), find internal backing and funding for your project and get an idea of where the journey
is going. Crucially, it prevents you from going too far down a road that eventually turns out to be a
dead end.

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 Questions to ask

Is what we’re trying to do technically and economically viable (think materials,

manufacturing process, etc.)? What’s the ROI for various options? Is this really the answer
to the market’s need? What are the incidental benefits? What are the timescales for our
options? Can they be staggered? When do gains kick in?

Enable: from a meaningful application towards certified manufacturing

At this point, decisions have been made as to which applications or schemes to take forward. It is
time to map out a detailed plan, as well as medium and long-term goals and ambitions.

This is where project timescales for the first applications, their roll-out and go-to market are agreed.
This includes decisions on which parts of the process to outsource, which to build up in-house
(including design for AM expertise, IP advice, process design, manufacturing capability).

Questions to ask

When and how do we want to deliver this first application? Who is going to design, develop,
and deliver it? At what initial scale?

Towards certified manufacturing

True commercial implementation of your first project begins. Your plans are put into action. You
may be starting in a lean way, using external partners to manufacture your parts or help you design
for AM. Or, you can choose to invest in your own certified manufacturing set-up. You will have built
into your plan a scale-up that allows for reviews and learnings to be fed back into your roadmap.
All the while you are expanding your knowledge of how AM works, how to get the most out of the
technology.

Of course, it’s not just a matter of scale. Manufacturing is about much more than production
volumes: it’s about quality, reliability and repeatability. Materialise defines typically 6 key pillars to
come to certified manufacturing: the right infrastructure, a proper software platform, dedicated
procedures and QMS, trained people, environmental impact optimization and continuous R&D.
Whether you aim to scale independently or with an external partner, it’s important to have the right
know-how on how to implement these 6 pillars.

Questions to ask

How do I set up an AM manufacturing process, while guaranteeing a constant quality?

Which experts to I need to have on board or which trainings do my people need therefor?

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Think beyond

A flexible plan enables you to adapt to opportunities as they emerge, while keeping an eye on the
price, and laying the road where you are planning to drive. This is particularly important as AM itself
keeps evolving, with shifting economics, fast developing technical possibilities, rapidly maturing
manufacturing processes and an ever-expanding service and subcontract industry at your disposal.
Your 5-year ambition may rely on technology that is not available today, but will be by the time you
are ready to use it.

Of course, the three main steps you’ll need to go through – explore, experiment, enable - are not
linear, you might be in the experimentation or enabling phase for an AM project while you are
reiterating in the exploration phase for a sub-project or another project in your AM program. With a
continuously agile mindset and the right guidance, this process will show naturally.

Questions to ask

Has our big ambition changed now we’ve cut our teeth? Do we need to adjust our plan?
Should we speed up or slow down? What’s the next project we should start? Should this be
done in parallel? In which department or process can we reuse this gained knowledge?

7 key tips and learnings by the Mindware team

The most important thing we’ve learned in 30 years of applying additive manufacturing and helping
others to do so is that no one journey is the same. And we know it is hard to make sense of the
sheer number of possibilities.

1. The best advice we can share is to focus, right from the outset, on using AM in a meaningful
way. That’s why we always encourage our clients to think about the business case straightaway.
It allows you to assess value, where your starting point may have been cost.

2. The second piece of advice is to involve a diverse group of people from different parts of the
organization. It will make your ideas better, but it will also generate backing for your project that
may otherwise be hard to secure.

3. Thirdly, if you can, bring in expertise that is broad, deep and agnostic, that can help you at the
beginning, when you have gaps in your knowledge of the technology and the market. It will help
you acquire the orientational knowledge you need to start navigating yourself.

4. Make use of the opportunity to fail fast. It’s what AM is incredibly good at: fast iterations for fast
learning, to get to a better solution more quickly. It derisks the process, as the cost of failure is
low, and hugely accelerates the building up of skills and knowledge.

5. Make it “normal”. As AM becomes part of your business, making it just another way of making
things will help AM thinking spread within your organization, offering opportunities to learn and
intensify your knowledge and skills. This will lower the cost of innovation and bring new ideas to
the surface from across the workforce. Consider actively shaping and accelerating this process
by putting in place informal, inexpensive structures for knowledge sharing and knowledge
transfer from partners.

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6. Speaking of partners, it helps to understand the support and services available to you, so you
don’t have to make sense of an incredibly complex field from a standing start. Below image
shows the types of partnerships we have with some of our clients, as an example, but there is an
incredible potential to ‘pick and mix’ from across a global AM industry – whether it’s overarching
strategy consultancy, paid-for application development, or all manner of outsourced processes
and services.

MANUFACTURING
PARTNER

CO-CREATION

JOINT DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP

7. Finally, all of the above can be neatly summarized in four words: Dream big, start small.
Dream big to really tap into the potential of AM, beyond short-term, cost-driven objectives, but
start small, to give yourself time to learn, to derisk, to evolve along with the technology. That’s
what successful AM journeys are made of.

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About Materialise
Materialise incorporates 30 years of 3D printing experience into a range of software
solutions and 3D printing services, which together form the backbone of the 3D printing industry.
Materialise’s open and fl exible solutions enable players in a wide variety of industries, including
healthcare, automotive, aerospace, art and design, and consumer goods, to build innovative
3D printing applications that aim to make the world a better and healthier place. Headquartered
in Belgium, with branches worldwide, Materialise combines one of the largest groups of software
developers in the industry with one of the largest 3D printing facilities in the world.

About Mindware
Mindware is a tailored advisory service by Materialise that puts companies on the fast track to
business success with additive manufacturing. Materialise is home to some of the 3D printing
industry’s most experienced veterans, who have worked with countless materials, machines, and
technologies since 1990. Mindware brings clients in direct contact with those experts and their
insights, building a substantial foundation of knowledge to build their strategy upon.

For additional information, please visit:

www.materialise.com/mindware