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bne May 2017 Companies & Markets I 15
have already fallen below the 1,000 mark, making them acces- sible to individuals as well.
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. Hardly a week goes by without an announcement about some product that has been made using 3D printing technology. In health care, dental crowns, braces, prosthetics and hearing aids have been printed; research-
ers are experimenting with the printing of human cells to create artificial skin, ears and kidneys, which would revolu- tionise transplants. Fashion designers, architects, artists and food technicians, to name a few, are experimenting with the possibilities offered by 3D printing. Shoes, clothing, building materials, household appliances – the list is endless. Last year APWorks took a huge leap forward with its 3D-printed electric motorcycle, called the Light Rider; Nike is already selling the first athletic shoe using 3D-printed components.
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 print- ing 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 manufacturing centres like Germany next door, though it compares well globally; in a global survey conducted 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 Practices for Manufacturing in Central and Eastern Europe”, estimated that actual adoption of AM technology is much lower than the general awareness of it and its benefits. “We estimate between 10-15% in the manu- facturing 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 wid- er adoption of AM technology in the Czech Republic and the whole CEE region is that 3D printing with metal in traditional parts engineering, where the greatest potential for 3D print- ing 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 treatment of the product in which midstream it gets the resulting physical, mechanical qualities] is very, very signifi-
cant,” says Viktor Fiala, sales director in the Czech Republic for the UK firm Renishaw, which offers metal AM manufacturing technologies for industrial and healthcare applications.
Another problem is, of course, cost, which depends on the type of materials to be processed, whether the materials can be substituted or must remain the same, and the number
of parts that need to be manufactured. The IDC research reveals that some CEE manufacturers have been able to reduce their initial investment by buying 3D printers from small local manufacturers – Czech 3D printing company Prusa Research is recognized as one of the leaders in producing 3D printers of its kind in its price range and has already sold tens of thousands of printers worldwide. However, most companies that require high-end printers designed for use in production are still large, often foreign, multinationals.
“You can’t just purchase five of these machines and start to print something – it’s completely the wrong approach,” says Fiala of Renishaw. “I think there exists a big problem in this field and that is if you would like to manufacture something with this additive manufacturing technology, you need a designer who is able to design the part, then optimise the production process for it – it is a much more complex pro- cess and that is why at the moment only big corporations are involved in this area because they are able to address the problems more systematically.”
It’s unsurprising, then, that large foreign companies are
still the principal source of high-end AM technologies in the region. “We can confirm the inflow of AM technology know- how and experience from abroad from mother companies operating out of more mature markets,” says IDC’s Kuban.
The US conglomerate Honeywell has its Additive Manufactur- ing facility in the Czech city of Brno, which employs more than
“At the moment only big corporations are involved in this area because they are able to address the problems more systematically”
1,800 engineers working in the areas of development for the Automatic Control Solutions and the Aerospace & Transporta- tion Systems organisations.
In November, the US engineering group GE announced plans to build a new factory outside of Prague focused on the development and production of the world’s first Advanced Turboprop engine using 3D-printed components. The fac- tory, which will double as GE Aviation’s first aircraft engine headquarters outside the US, will employ 500 people. It is scheduled to open in 2022.
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