The five pillars of trusted AM production

Whether it’s an OEM sourcing 3D printed parts to simplify a supply chain, an AM service looking to establish scalable production, or an organization adopting additive technology to streamline product development, there is one thing that is a top priority for them all: finding a trusted partner. With nearly four decades in operation, AM company Stratasys understands this better than most, and has established itself as a leader in the segment by building strong relationships across the board and providing products and services that cut the mustard. 

Since Stratasys was founded in 1989, the company has played an important role in the evolution of the technology. Notably, the company pioneered extrusion-based 3D printing, even patenting the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process in 1992. Today, Stratasys has grown considerably and now offers an array of different AM technologies (including FDM, PolyJet, DLP, SLA, SAF, and MoldJet), as well as qualified materials, advanced software programs, and production services. 

This growth has paralleled the maturation of the AM industry, which has progressed from a technology limited to rapid prototyping applications to a scalable, industrial process that has been embraced in sectors like aerospace, automotive, defense, healthcare, and others. As Stratasys says, this evolution has been driven by many factors, but trust underpins them all. 

“Adopters know that additive manufacturing is a proven production solution for even the most mission-critical use cases,” the company said. “Take Airbus as an example. The global aerospace giant is producing more than 25,000 flight-ready 3D printed parts annually, having evolved from its first part—a spare crew seat component—to a whole host of onboard components. Airbus is committed to safe and sustainable aviation and deploys only technology it can rely on.”

There is no question that trust is key: manufacturers have to trust that a given solution will perform reliably and consistently; they also have to trust that hardware suppliers will support them; as well as trust that production parts will perform as expected. But trust itself is somewhat of an abstract term. To better understand how to establish trust in the way that Stratasys has—with the goal of growing AM adoption—we can break the concept down into five pillars: experience, reliability, materials, support, and ecosystem.

Experience

The first pillar of trust is experience. As we’ve already seen, Stratasys has 37 years of experience, over which the company and its growing team have built a vast foundation of knowledge and expertise. Today, Stratasys employs hundreds of scientists, engineers, and materials experts who all share the goal of improving and advancing AM solutions. These solutions not only encompass various different 3D printing technologies, they also span the entire product lifecycle, with a growing portfolio of materials and secure, connected software programs. 

Throughout its history, Stratasys has also built a vast global network and an international footprint that includes offices in 13 countries from across North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. “Stratasys’ deep expertise, combined with a global support network, means leaders in aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and beyond trust additive manufacturing to accelerate innovation and drive real manufacturing outcomes,” the company added. 

Reliability

The second pillar that is critical to establishing trust in AM is reliability. It makes sense, as the technology has matured, a concern amongst users and adopters has been how to ensure process and production consistency, not just on the same machine, but from system to system and at various production sites. 

Stratasys has addressed the question of process reliability over the years, developing hardware improvements and software upgrades that target repeatability, even for the most demanding applications. By working closely with its customers, the company has strengthened the reliability of its solutions ensuring that selecting the same parameters for a given part will result in identical prints with predictable properties. 

To this end, Stratasys launched an industrial Customer Advisory Board (CAB) in 2024, a 12-member group that gives Stratasys valuable input related to quality, data characterization, sustainability, and reliability. Members of the CAB include Aston Martin F1, Northrop Grumman, Siemens Mobility, Boeing, Ford, and Lockheed Martin. Insights from this board have led to measurable improvements. For instance, Stratasys has achieved a 22% year-over-year increase in system reliability for the F900 industrial 3D printer thanks to CAB insights. 

Materials

Material development and qualification are not only a pillar for trust, they have been absolutely vital to AM’s evolution in recent decades. As more and more industrial-grade materials are developed for various AM processes, more applications have opened up. The advent of high-performance polymers, for example, has enabled users to benefit from material properties like high mechanical strength, chemical resistance, thermal stability, and more. 

Stratasys offers a broad array of material options, ranging from affordable rapid prototyping filaments, to biocompatible plastics, to PEI-based ULTEM grades for end-use production. This commitment to diversifying its material portfolio and offering qualified, application-driven products has unlocked possibilities for its customers. Customers like Airbus, which regularly uses Stratasys ULTEM 9085 Certified Grade filament to produce numerous flight-ready components using FDM printers.  

Material options are growing outside of Stratasys too, something which customers can see first hand on the Stratasys-backed iAM Marketplace, an open ecosystem for additive manufacturing materials, hardware, and services. 

Support

As any successful AM solutions provider will know, providing the technology is only part of the equation: customers are also seeking support as they implement AM, whether for their own production or to run a service. Stratasys’ business model emphasizes customer support, from identifying the right application or type of technology, to onboarding and installation, to training, to maintenance and operational support. 

Stratasys also offers an education resource called the Stratasys Academy, which consists of digital knowledge bases and courses all geared towards building AM skills. The Stratasys Academy also comes with a certification program that includes hands-on training for all of the company’s AM technologies. 

“This end-to-end blend of digital and human support helps manufacturers integrate additive manufacturing into their factories more effectively, boosting utilization and productivity, and ultimately maximizing return on investment,” the company said. 

Ecosystem

The final pillar is the ecosystem, or the software that supports the hardware and materials. Stratasys is among the AM companies that offer a comprehensive suite of software services all geared towards enabling seamless process operation and scalability. Within this suite, GrabCAD Print helps to simplify everyday 3D printing workflows with features like CAD-file compatibility, automated support generation, and real-time print monitoring. 

For more industrial production environments, Stratasys offers GrabCAD Streamline Pro, which connects printers, parts, and people for scalable use, as well as provides production analytics, process monitoring, and enhanced security features. The company’s OpenAM software supports flexibility and innovation by enabling users to exert greater control on process parameters as well as material development.  

Overall, Stratasys’ software programs enable all types of AM users to maximize the technology’s capabilities in line with their production needs. As the company emphasized: “By surrounding our machines with tools for optimization, connectivity, and scale, Stratasys provides manufacturers with a more complete—and dependable—route into industrial AM.”

Industries approve

By recognizing and addressing these five pillars throughout its journey, Stratasys has grown into a leading force within the AM world. Its end-to-end solutions and support framework have helped transform AM into a tried-and-trusted production method for diverse industries, including demanding sectors like aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, medical, and transport. 

In the latter, Angel Trains, one of the leading rolling stock providers in the UK, has improved sourcing for spare parts by turning to Stratasys’ AM solutions, realizing dramatic cost savings (up to 50% per part) and decreased lead times (nearly 94%) for certain spare components. 

In defense, an industry where AM’s adoption is growing rapidly, Stratasys’ services division, Stratasys Direct, is printing over 100,000 parts annually for customers, which are certifiable through AS9100, ISO 9001, CMMC compliance and ITAR requirements.

Ultimately, building trust—in a process, in a company, in an industry—is about delivering reliable hardware and software, offering a broad material portfolio, providing strong customer service, and building on experience. It is also about demonstrating a commitment to continual growth and improvement, something that Stratasys continues to do, driven by the goal of advancing industrial AM adoption.