4 key topics from a great Additive Manufacturing Strategies Summit in NYC.
1. AM as a Stage-2 Industry.
Allow me rewording what I heard from James Hockey (Incodema3D, LLC), Arno Held (AM Ventures), Danny Piper (NewCap Partners), Yoav Zeif (CEO at Stratasys).
Calls to action pointing in the same direction: take 2024 as a make-or-break year (Arno Held) and focus on Applications – a.k.a. closing deals.
My fellow Listener Jim Hockey was very clear in signaling that this industry has already ‘sold the technology’ and has already educated OEMs to think and design for AM.
Focus on assisting your Customers. Ultimately, listen to the OEMs and allocate resources to deliver.
In times like this, Industry peers have to come together and talk to each other differently; Realism is advised. Dig it.
(Arno Held rules, so does Jason Jones).
Conclusion:
the ultimate shortcut to Market is to Listen.
2. AI is a fit for AM, but…
For an Industry that nicknames itself “Digital Manufacturing” machine learning is an obvious fit.
(In particular, I’d mention the improvement that will be allowed by managing data from in-situ monitoring, mentioned by Melanie Lang – see the solutions by Phase3D and Additive Assurance, who equally intrigue me).
Good to know: AI has been used by Desktop Metal since 2015; Stratasys is introducing an open platform for Customer’s software.
And yet, a good call to reality came from Sam O’Leary (Nikon SLM Solutions): make sure you focus on areas where the benefit from AI can deliver a good ROI. Also, Yoav Zeif advised to implement AI in steps, while the frenzy promises a moonshot (my wording).
All in all, I see it hard to exclude AI from AM and 3D Printing conferences.
3. The AM crowd.
As my fellow Listener Mary Cecile Neville already stated, People are a key element to AM advancement.
I’d say that in the over 10 Industries I served so far, I’ve never seen such a balance in gender and age distribution. This is bringing tremendous value to the conversations.
Key point: what I hear the most at AM shows is “you need to talk to this person, let me introduce you”
If one of us wins, we all win.
(and let me say that Kristin Mulherin and Yours Truly witnessed how the idea of a get-together evolved in a motivational event with traits of something epic).
4. No Cars go.
Boutique Automotive is a phenomenal target for AM. I know, you know.
At contrary, “Automotive <$100k” is considered by many a distraction, a fairy tale extrapolation – anything this Industry doesn’t need right now. You’ll hear more from me on the topic.
Luigi Alzati
VP Sales and Marketing
