This Startup will Help to Unlock a $34B Future Industry
3D printing seems to be the latest trend when it comes to prototyping, but is still in its infancy when it comes to large scale production.
In fact, additive manufacturing, which is effectively 3D printing for metal parts, only equated to 0.05% of the $12.8 trillion dollar Global Manufacturing market in 2017.
The thing is, the potential of 3D printing and additive manufacturing (AM) is huge due to its ability to efficiently and cost effectively manufacture complex shapes and small run products.
Wohlers in 2017 produced a report that forecast that additive manufacturing would own 5% of the global manufacturing market, which is a measly $34B billion dollars.
Early adopters such as the aerospace industry are already leveraging the benefits of additive manufacturing for production parts such as jet engines. But there’s a big problem that’s holding the additive manufacturing market from reaching its potential.
The majority of the products produced using the additive manufacturing process contain defects of some type. This high rate of defects is hampering the industry, as the only current solutions is to either pay huge money to perform CT scans on each object, or not use this technology for production purposes.
And unfortunately there is no process solution to this quality issue with additive manufacturing, because the defects are induced in the process itself.
“The current state of AM means that the golden key to unlocking this massive market is developing a cost effective quality assurance method for AM. Traditional methods such as CT scanning just won’t cut it - this is because it costs more than $1M for setup, plus $200k yearly in running costs. Figures most industries just can’t justify spending, and on top of this it only works on smaller parts. This is where Additive Assurance comes in.” reports Marten, one of the founders of Additive Assurance.
The solution Additive Assurance is bringing to the table, is just this. A cost effective solution to quality control for additive manufactured products.
How are they doing this? Well that’s kinda a secret, because they are still going through their IP process. But in essence, they’ve developed a cheap and highly effective way to detect defects during the AM process in real time, with industry best accuracy.
This means that their solution doesn’t just solve the cost issue behind AM QA, it also means manufacturers using these methods will have exact data around exactly when and where the faults are forming, to decrease the defect rate.
Its all about finding the defects fast, then either stopping or repairing builds. By finding defects in real time, manufacturers can save huge amounts of time and money on what would otherwise be wasted.
So you can consider them to be the ninjas in the night that are cutting the price of QA in the AM market.
Here’s a little more about the founders:
The Additive Assurance team was founded by Marten Jurg, a Monash University researcher, and Andrey Molotnikov, a Monash University senior lecturer, both experts in additive manufacturing field.
Marten Jurg - Founder
Why you care about this project?
- AM is the future of manufacturing - I strongly believe that - and through this project we’re able to help manufacturers turn that vision into a reality.
One piece of advice you’d give any young researcher out there:
- It’s easy to do great research that has no impact on the world. Make sure that what you are doing matters.. And go easy on the coffee. ;)
Find Marten on LinkedIn HERE
Andrey Molotnikov - Founder
Find Andrey on LinkedIn HERE