Sigma Labs Inc (SASI)

[Jackle]

Several analyst reports expect that the direct market for AM will grow to at least $20 billion by 2020—a figure that represents just a fraction of the entire tooling market today.1 However, we believe that the overall economic impact created by AM could be much higher, reaching $100 billion to 250 billion by 2025, if adoption across industries continues at today’s rate. Most of that potential will come from the aerospace and defense, automotive, medical, and consumer-goods industries.

Major governments are setting up R&D funds, including the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, or are starting capability-building programs for their workforces, as in Korea.

Limited production scale. Because most current AM machines are made for prototyping rather than series production, mass production scale is hard to attain. The next-generation machinery needs to keep reducing production costs while adding capabilities necessary to support industrial production, such as process-stability management, in-process quality control, faster changeovers, greater reliability, and easier maintenance and repair.

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/additive-manufacturing-a-long-term-game-changer-for-manufacturers?cid=soc-web