Mauser, I respect your opinion, and in part I agree with it, but I must disagree in part.
Obviously as volume production nears and the sector is becoming more comfortable with EBM and 3d printing, and with sales already made, many companies have started and completed their experimentation with EBM and EBM printers as have some universities.
BUT, and this is a big BUT, there are many more universities and companies to be heard from. As volume 3d manufacturing becomes more commonplace, interest in 3d printing will increase and as more parts are EBMed, interest will increase in EBM printers.
I've heard some posters opine that there have been roughly 100 of the rough 225 arcam printers bought for research and experimentation. I will accept that number for argument's sake. So that leaves a lot of universities and companies that have not already bought EBM printers and may like to test them out as the 3d printing sector matures.
As you pointed out the 3d printing sector needs more trained operators to operate the machines effectively and engineers to design 3d related parts.
Now where will these guys come from and be trained. At universities and in new classes in universities not offering the courses yet. This will require a lot more printers for each new university that offers a 3d printing course and some of these courses will focus on EBM. So I postulate that many more universities will be buying arcam printers to train students in EBM use to satisfy the need for volume manufacturing. So I disagree with your postulation that university market is saturated.
Simarily, as companies successfully show how effective EBM printing is in aerospace, medical and other sectors, many new companies will be interested in getting into the game. Since no company starts with just the desire to print and advances to production without testing and experimentation, I postulate that many additional companies will want to experiment with ebm printers to see if they can improve their traditional processes. So many more companies than currently are experimenting with ebm printers will want too do so which will continue to spark ebm printer sales for such experimentation. Just like RR, Alcoa, PW etc have done. So I postulate a lot more printer sales to different companies for experimentation may be forthcoming.
For the above reasons, I disagree with your thesis that printer sales to universities and companies for research and experimentation are saturated and matured. I wish the company announced its buyers so we would know how many of current sales are to universities and company experimentation, i.e. companies that buy printers that are not being used for specific part producton. We may never know as we don't know how many printers are now being sold for such purposes. But given the obvious expansion of 3d ebm manufacturing, I must conclude that more universities will buy ebm printers to train students in the process and more companies will want to jump on the bandwagon and will need printers to see how effective ebm printing is for their parts. Right?????
