CECIMO, the European Manufacturing Technologies Association, together with a dozen national industry associations, publishes the Manifesto for a Competitive European Additive Manufacturing (AM) Sector. This manifesto outlines a shared vision and strategic recommendations to position Europe as a world leader in additive manufacturing (additive manufacturing / AM). The publication also marks the launch of AM-Europe. This is a new initiative by CECIMO to represent the AM sector in the EU and provide a unified voice at the European level.
Additive manufacturing plays a crucial role in supporting the European Union's (EU) strategic priorities. These priorities include the green transition, digitalisation, re-shoring, the development of advanced materials and strengthening industrial autonomy. To maintain and strengthen Europe's leadership in this area, collective action is needed to address international competition, skills shortages and technical challenges.
Challenges for the AM sector
In the manifesto, the parties involved identify several challenges for the AM sector. These include:
- Growing international competition: while Europe remains a major player in the global AM market, competitors from North America and Asia are making significant progress. In doing so, they are supported by national policy strategies and both public and private investments larger than in the EU.
- A paradigm shift in product development: adopting AM technologies requires changes in how products are designed and realised. These changes are not yet fully understood by several industries, leading to doubts at decision level and hindering both the growth and effective deployment of AM technology.
- The shortage of qualified personnel: there is a lack of qualified and experienced personnel in the market, ranging from designers and technicians to engineers.
- Technical barriers: some areas within AM technologies and applications require further research, such as consistency of component quality, post-processing and the development of advanced materials. This research is necessary to provide a competitive solution for more industrial ecosystems, according to the manifesto.
AM's contribution to EU goals
The manifesto highlights several ways in which AM can contribute to achieving European goals:
- Green transition and sustainable manufacturing: AM plays a key role in the green transition by enabling the production of complex, lightweight parts. These parts reduce the overall weight of products without compromising strength. This leads to lower fuel consumption and more efficient use of materials. AM also supports production on demand and localised manufacturing, which helps with reducing transport requirements and associated CO2 emissions.
- Industrial digital transformation and industry 4.0: AM is an integral part of digital transformation and the concept of industry 4.0. It uses digital design files and computer-based processes. It can also be integrated with other strategic technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and IoT devices. This makes it possible to achieve higher levels of precision, repeatability, efficiency and speed.
- Re-shoring: AM enables localised manufacturing, and thus can help bring manufacturing operations back to Europe. Embracing AM technologies enables companies to locate production facilities closer to their target markets, leading to faster response times and greater control over the production process.
- Reducing international dependencies: AM can increase companies' resilience and autonomy over their production processes. The use of AM technologies gives companies greater control and freedom over the entire production cycle, from design to production. This leads to greater flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness to changing market demands.
- Advanced materials: AM supports material innovation by allowing complex, personalised components to be built layer by layer. The method simplifies the experimentation and integration of materials that were previously difficult to machine. This enables applications such as high-strength alloys for aerospace, high-performance polymers, biocompatible materials for medical use and smart materials with sensors and actuators.
Strategic recommendations
The manifesto includes a vision to position Europe as a global player in AM. To this end, it shares a number of strategic recommendations:
- Launching a comprehensive European AM strategy: develop and implement a robust AM strategy to strengthen the EU's AM leadership. This strategy should focus on assessing the status of the AM sector in the EU and identifying strengths and weaknesses, as well as outlining actions to keep it competitive.
- Support the growth of a European AM ecosystem: establish a European AM entity through a public-private partnership to accelerate the adoption and development of AM technologies in Europe. This collaboration facilitates the adoption of AM technologies and can serve as a one-stop shop for information related to AM policy, standardisation, market adoption, research, development and innovation.
- Maximising the impact of public investment: both the EU and its member states made significant investments in AM over the past decade. This has led to a wide range of solutions, research results and development activities. Leveraging these existing resources in future research, development and innovation programmes can help the EU avoid duplication and focus investment on new projects.
- AM as a critical sector for emergency response capabilities: invest in AM to improve emergency response capabilities, and enable rapid production of critical components during crises. Establishing a network of AM facilities in member states enables the EU to use AM to address supply chain disruptions and produce critical components on demand, reducing dependence on external suppliers.
- Strengthening the AM workforce: implement initiatives to support AM workforce development, in line with the findings of EU-funded projects such as SAM (Sector Skills Strategy in Additive Manufacturing). This will ensure a skilled workforce that can drive AM innovation and respond effectively to industry needs.
The Manifesto for a Competitive European Additive Manufacturing (AM) Sector can be found here.
