Additive Manufacturing Trends in 2023 — Historical Industry Snapshot

This article is an archive of 2023 expectations

This page was originally published as a forward-looking list of additive manufacturing trends for 2023. It is now preserved as a historical snapshot rather than a current industry outlook.

The original themes—powder bed fusion, automation, new materials, vat photopolymerization, directed energy deposition, binder jetting and production scaling—remain relevant process categories. However, the article used overly promotional language and did not distinguish between technical possibility, commercial adoption and qualified production.

How to read the original 2023 themes today

2023 theme	More durable interpretation	Current Addithive resource
Powder bed fusion	A mature process family whose limits depend on material, machine, geometry and qualification	LPBF terminology guide
Automation	A factory-flow and data problem, not simply robotic printer loading	Scaling AM production
Novel materials	Useful only when feedstock, process window, post-processing and design data mature together	Metal AM process selection
Vat polymerization	A broad family covering SLA, DLP, MSLA and continuous-interface approaches	Vat photopolymerization guide
Directed energy deposition	A family whose economics depend on deposition, machining and inspection as one route	WAAM guide
Binder jetting	Printing speed must be evaluated together with depowdering, debinding and sintering	Binder jetting guide
High-volume production	Accepted-part throughput depends on yield and downstream bottlenecks	Production scaling

Claims from the original article that should not be carried forward

• AM is not automatically more sustainable than conventional manufacturing.
• Faster printers do not automatically create high-volume production.
• New materials do not become industrial materials until the process and data package mature.
• Binder jetting does not automatically provide varying material properties throughout a part.
• Rapid prototyping is an established use case, not a new 2023 trend.
• On-demand production still requires qualified data, equipment, material and post-processing capacity.

A better way to follow AM development

Instead of tracking broad annual trend labels, monitor the constraints that determine whether a technology can scale:

• Qualified material and process data
• First-pass yield and defect control
• Post-processing and inspection capacity
• Accepted-part economics
• Repeat production orders rather than demonstrations
• Supplier and machine-platform durability
• Standards, certification and change-control maturity
• Application-specific performance advantage

Archive status: This article is retained for readers researching what the industry expected in 2023. It is no longer maintained as a current trends report.