Terry Wohlers on Additive Manufacturing: Where Australia Can Compete and Win

**This story originally appeared in the February 2026 edition of AMT Magazine**

Terry Wohlers has provided technical and strategic advisory services on rapid product development, additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing for 38 years – to more than 280 organisations in 27 countries. As a principal author of industry-leading publication the Wohlers Report, he has an earned reputation as an industry leader.

Here he discusses some of the trends emerging in AM and where Australia can make the most of new opportunities.

Looking at AM on a global scale, where does Australia sit?

The growth of AM globally has been historically strong. In the past 15 years, it has grown more than 22 per cent on average every year. This past year has not been as strong, but still a growth rate of 9.1 per cent.

Of the US$21.9 billion of revenue the sector generated in 2024, about US$3.7 billion is tied to production applications – parts made for final use – a figure which grew by 12.1 per cent last year.

Adoption of AM in the Asia Pacific region grew 31 per cent in 2024, of which Australia is a part. That’s the good news – maybe less than good news is that China makes up the lion’s share of this growth. Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew by 3.2 per cent and the USA declined by slightly more than 4.8 per cent.

I want to add that directed energy deposition (DED) AM has really taken off. It has gained more traction in the last 3-4 years than it did in all the other years combined. If you think of the old saying of a solution looking for a problem – it’s found the problems, and it’s a solution – not for everything, but for the right types of large parts.

What can we learn from China and its adoption of AM?

When it comes to scaling, China is doing it. The US isn’t even remotely close to China in terms of adoption – in which hundreds of millions of parts are being built by AM.

The West, including Australia, really pioneered it with significant investment, and now we have this to consider. Perhaps now is the time for us to take a closer look at what China is doing. They’re also automating AM process chains, and even cheap labour can be more expensive than automation.

They have benefited from what we’ve done, made improvements to their machines, materials, and post-processing, and taken it to another level in some cases. I think we can learn from some of that work as well. China’s central government, its provincial governments, they’re all in – and they understand its value.

What has increasing adoption of AM enabled companies to do?

I had an opportunity to visit Additive Flight Solutions (AFS), a company in Singapore whose customers are airlines. Lufthansa, Qantas, United and most others wait 6-12 months to get replacement or refurbished parts.

In one example, AFS reengineered 35 different parts for Singapore Airlines. The work involved about 40 parts per part number and about 1000 total parts – an example of short-run production. It would be far too expensive to produce 35 moulds for a quantity of 1000 total. It just doesn’t make sense. So, if you can “grow” the parts additively, it becomes practical and affordable.

AFS practices real distributed manufacturing – printing 300 parts for 17 different aircraft for Finnair in Europe, Singapore, UAE, and USA. Rather than centralising and shipping around the world, they’re building them where they’re being used.

SPEED3D demonstrated with the production of a transmission mount by putting an additive machine and CNC machining in a portable shipping container. This has supported quick manufacturing close to where parts break or wear out.

What do you think are the main obstacles to increasing the take-up of AM?

Well, I believe number one is cost – pretty much for all industries. Cost of machines, materials, and services is still an issue, and that’s why automotive has not adopted it in a bigger way. Once we can drive costs down and volumes up, we will open up many new applications.

The automotive industry has typically been the early adopters and are big users for jigs, fixtures and other forms of tooling, but for end-use parts, unless it’s Aston Martin or a high-end Cadillac – AM is the exception.

With a few exceptions, we’re not seeing the automotive industry use AM for series production. Once this happens, AM will become more affordable in other industrial sectors, such as consumer products. It is taking much, much longer than many of us expected.

What can be done to increase the adoption of AM in Australia?

Years ago, Fried Vancraen, the founder of Materialise, said applications will drive the future growth of this industry… and I couldn’t agree more. If you don’t have strong applications, you really don’t have an industry.

It’s about looking at what applications are a good fit for Australia and where you can see the opportunity for startup companies that can drive those applications to commercial success. When Australia makes, Australia works.