Page 10 - bne IntelliNews Newspaper 280417

Central Europe
April 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Czech manufacturers look increasingly to 3D printing but barriers remain
bne IntelliNews
The Czech Republic is looking to become a cen- tre for additive manufacturing in the Central and Eastern European region, with a survey released in April showing a majority of large Czech manu- facturers have started using 3D printing technol- ogy or are planning to introduce it within the next five years. However, adoption still lags well behind Germany and experts warn there are numerous obstacles to overcome before it becomes more widespread in the region.
The worldwide 3D printing industry is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years, from $3.0bn in revenue in 2013 to more than $550bn by the year 2025, according to a McKinsey & Co study.
According to a survey conducted by the Prague School of Economics and the consultancy EY released in April, 56% of the of the 71 prominent manufacturing companies in the Czech Republic they surveyed said they were using 3D printing technology or planned to do so in the near future
in order to raise their competitiveness and reduce production costs. This is lower than major manu- facturing centres like Germany next door, though it compares well globally; in a global survey conduct- ed by EY of 900 companies, the percentage using or planning to use 3D technology was lower at 36%.
Other surveys are less supportive of the trend in CEE. A report earlier this year from technology analysts IDC, titled “IDC PeerScape: 3D Printing
South Moravian Innovation Centre in Brno.
Practices for Manufacturing in Central and East- ern Europe”, estimated that actual adoption of AM technology is much lower than the general aware- ness of it and its benefits. “We estimate between 10-15% in the manufacturing sector according
to our surveys,” Martin Kuban, senior research analyst at IDC, tells bne IntelliNews. “Also, the currently adopted use cases are mostly very basic as of now. Prototyping is by far the strongest one. Leading industries are automotive, aerospace & defence, and equipment & tool manufacturers.”
One of the main barriers that industry players identify to wider adoption of additive manufactur- ing (AM) technology in the Czech Republic and the whole CEE region is that 3D printing with metal
in traditional parts engineering, where the great- est potential for 3D printing lies, is by far the most challenging area for AM. As such it requires the type of 3D printing technology that is not widely available and mostly found in the most advanced markets like the US and Germany.
“You have to process metal powders to receive a part whose physical and mechanical properties are close to the material of standard machining. That is why post-processing [the final heat treat- ment of the product in which midstream it gets the resulting physical, mechanical qualities] is very, very significant,” says Viktor Fiala, sales director
in the Czech Republic for the UK firm Renishaw, which offers metal AM manufacturing technolo- gies for industrial and healthcare applications.