The shift is not sudden. It has been building steadily, driven by compounding improvements in machine reliability, materials qualification, post-processing capability, and, critically, economics. But there is a point at which gradual change becomes a new reality, and for additive manufacturing in serial production, we have reached it.

The repeatability problem has been solved

The most persistent objection to additive in production has always been consistency. Can part 1,000 be identical to part one? Historically, the honest answer was: not reliably enough. That has changed.

Modern powder bed fusion technologies, combined with post-processing methods such as vapour smoothing and bead blasting, now deliver standardised mechanical properties and surface finishes across entire batches. The surface quality is not quite injection moulding, but for the vast majority of end-use industrial applications, it does not need to be. Functional performance is the threshold that matters, and today’s systems clear it comfortably.

This matters enormously for procurement teams and engineers who bear risk for parts entering real production environments. Qualification used to be the sticking point. Increasingly, it is not.

Speed and capital efficiency have changed the calculation

Injection moulding is optimised for high-volume, stable production runs. When you know you need 100,000 identical parts, and the design is locked, the economics are hard to beat. But that scenario describes a shrinking share of modern manufacturing requirements.

Tooling lead times of up to 12 weeks, combined with upfront mould costs that can run to tens of thousands of pounds, create genuine commercial risk when design iteration is likely, launch windows are tight, or volumes are modest. Additive removes that exposure entirely. A design change means updating a CAD file, not commissioning a new mould. A batch of several hundred to a few thousand parts can be delivered in days, not months.

For companies navigating product launches under time pressure or managing low-to medium-volume production across varied SKUs, this is not a niche advantage. It is a structural one.

The complexity advantage remains underutilised

One area where additive consistently outperforms traditional methods, and where industry adoption is still catching up with the potential, is geometric complexity.

Features that would require expensive mould sliders or multi-part assemblies in injection moulding are simply printed. Internal channels, undercuts, lattice structures: the constraints that shape conventional design thinking largely disappear.

The issue is that most parts being sent to additive manufacturing have not been designed for it. They have been designed for conventional manufacturing and transferred across. The economics of that approach are limited. When engineers instead design with additive in mind, using part consolidation, topology optimisation, and structures informed by how the material actually behaves, the results improve substantially. The bone’s lattice structure, for example, achieves greater strength than a solid equivalent. Applied intelligently to industrial parts, that principle unlocks performance and material efficiency that conventional methods cannot replicate.

This is arguably the most underdeveloped opportunity in the sector right now, and it requires a shift in engineering culture as much as a shift in tooling strategy.

Where the market is heading

The data supports what we see in practice. Additive Manufacturing Research (AM Research) estimates that additively manufactured parts will account for about $24.5 billion in market impact in 2025. According to its “AM Applications Analysis: Parts Produced 2025–2034” report, the value of parts produced with additive manufacturing could reach $110 billion by 2034, suggesting that 3D printing is continuing to move beyond prototyping and into real manufacturing.

The verticals leading this shift are consistent with what you would expect. According to AM Research, aerospace applications make up nearly 22% of the total value of metal parts produced with additive manufacturing around the world. As governments and private space companies continue pouring money into rockets, satellites, and drones, the defense and space sectors also play a big role. The report also says that while aerospace leads in value, healthcare dominates in the number of metal parts produced. The orthopedic and biomedical industry produced more than two million metal AM parts in 2025, while the dental sector produced over 25 million during the same period.

Each of these sectors combines demanding performance requirements with exactly the kind of complexity, customisation, and volume profile where additive offers a genuine alternative to conventional methods. The energy sector, which invested heavily in additive manufacturing during a period of infrastructure constraint, is another example of an industry that made the transition and has not looked back.

What procurement and engineering teams need to consider

For organisations that have not yet integrated additive into their production strategy, the barrier is rarely technical. It is more often a combination of unfamiliarity with current capabilities, uncertainty about cost comparison, and understandable caution about introducing an unproven process into an established supply chain.

The practical answer to that caution is to start with a contained, well-defined use case. A part with time-to-market pressure, a component with complex geometry that is expensive in conventional tooling, or a low-to-medium volume run where tooling investment does not make financial sense: these are natural entry points. The risk of testing is low. No advance commitments are required, and the cost comparison with conventional methods can be evaluated directly before any decision is made.

The question for most organisations is no longer whether additive manufacturing is viable for production. It is whether their supply chain strategy is positioned to take advantage of it.

Nikolaus Mroncz, Head of Sales Engineering, Xometry

Nikolaus Mroncz has over a decade of experience in advanced manufacturing and currently leads the sales engineering department at Xometry Europe, an AI-powered on-demand manufacturing marketplace.

Since traditional implants are often made from rigid materials that do not naturally work well with the body’s soft tissue, researchers have been searching for more flexible alternatives, ones that don’t have problems like irritation, inflammation, and scar tissue forming around implantable bioelectronics. So these new devices, developed by a team at the university’s College of Engineering, are flexible enough to stretch and move with arteries instead of fighting against them. In fact, the Penn State team believes its new approach could help solve some of those problems.

The work focuses on hypertension, or high blood pressure, which affects nearly half of adults in the United States and roughly 1.28 billion people globally. For many patients, medications and lifestyle changes are enough to manage the condition. But about one in ten people with hypertension have what doctors call “drug-resistant hypertension,” which means their blood pressure stays dangerously high even after taking multiple medications. And that is exactly where these new implants come in.

To tackle that problem, the researchers created a soft bioelectronic device called “CaroFlex,” a small, stretchy implant around the size of a fingertip. It is designed to attach to the carotid sinus, an important region near the carotid artery that helps regulate blood pressure through something known as the baroreflex.

Often described as “the body’s built-in pressure sensor,” the baroreflex constantly monitors how much the blood vessels expand as blood moves through them. So, when blood pressure rises too high, specialized nerve endings in artery walls signal the nervous system to bring it back down. Scientists have studied ways to electrically stimulate this system for years, but many earlier devices relied on rather rigid implants that could damage tissue or become less effective over time.

The figure demonstrates the impact CaroFlex had on systolic arterial pressure (SAP), diastolic arterial pressure (DAP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) in rodent models. The team compared readings taken from before and after stimulation, using four different electrical frequencies, reporting that CaroFlex reduced average levels across all domains. Image courtesy of Tao Zhou.

A look back

Penn State’s implant belongs to a newer area of medicine known as bioelectronic medicine, or neuromodulation, where devices use electrical signals to interact with nerves and the body’s natural reflexes. Researchers have been studying these kinds of treatments for high blood pressure since at least the early 2000s. One of the best-known examples was CVRx’s Rheos system, which used a pacemaker-like device implanted near the chest and connected to electrodes placed near the carotid artery in the neck to stimulate the body’s natural blood pressure response.

Those earlier systems worked, but they relied on pretty rigid materials and wiring. Since arteries constantly expand and contract with every heartbeat, hard implants can be difficult for the body to handle over long periods of time.

Penn State’s newer CaroFlex device is designed differently. The fingertip-sized implant is soft and stretchy, allowing it to bend and move more naturally with the artery itself instead of behaving like a hard object attached to soft tissue. Penn State’s approach is different because the device is soft and stretchable.

But softness was not the only problem the team tried to solve. The researchers also wanted to avoid another issue that is quite common in implantable devices, and that is stitches. Many implants need sutures to stay attached to tissue, but arteries constantly move and stretch with every heartbeat. And over time, those stitches can irritate or damage surrounding tissue.

To get around that problem, the Penn State team developed a “suture-free” design using a soft adhesive hydrogel layer that gently sticks directly to the artery itself. However, that does not mean the implant can be placed without surgery onto the artery, at least in its current experimental stage, but the adhesive does remove the need for stitches to hold the device in place.

3D printing meets bioelectronics

According to the university, the team used 3D printing to build the implant from flexible materials that can bend and move naturally alongside arteries. They also developed an adhesive layer that allows the implant to stick gently to biological tissue without causing major irritation.

“For many patients, even taking a combination of three to five medicines doesn’t alleviate their high blood pressure,” said Tao Zhou, research team leader, author of the study, and an assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State. “In these cases, bioelectronic devices that use electrical signals to modulate the body’s natural response systems offer a promising form of alternative treatment.”

3D printing allows the team to produce bioelectronics faster and with better biocompatibility to the body’s soft tissues than traditional fabrication methods. Image courtesy of Tao Zhou.

For the 3D printing industry, the project also highlights the growing area of research of soft bioelectronics and implantable medical devices. Since traditional manufacturing methods often struggle to produce electronics that are both flexible and highly customized, 3D printing has allowed researchers to create small structures with unique shapes, soft materials, and designs that can better match the body’s natural movement.

Interestingly, CaroFlex is not the first soft bioelectronics project from Tao Zhou’s lab. Earlier this year, the team unveiled experimental 3D printed brain sensors designed to sit directly on the surface of the brain and record electrical activity. The soft hydrogel-based sensors were customized to match the exact folds and curves of individual brains, which researchers hope could reduce irritation and improve performance compared to traditional rigid electrodes.

Like CaroFlex, the project focused on creating electronics that behave more like living tissue instead of relying on hard, one-size-fits-all hardware. Zhou’s lab has also published plenty of research on direct ink printing, conductive hydrogels, and multi-material 3D printing for soft implantable electronics. In fact, images released by Penn State show the devices being printed through syringe-like extrusion systems that deposit soft conductive materials layer by layer.

The soft bioelectrodes use a honeycomb-inspired design that allows researchers to stretch them onto the specific geometry of a patient’s brain, without sacrificing structural strength or sensitivity to electrical and physiological signals. Image courtesy of Tao Zhou.

This is also part of a broader trend in healthcare. Over the last several years, researchers around the world have been looking at flexible electronics for everything from “smart” bandages and wearable sensors to brain implants and soft robotics. Penn State itself has been active in the field, recently showing projects involving hair-thin EEG monitors, emotion-detecting wearable sensors, and systems that can monitor wounds in real time.

Still, turning experimental implants into approved medical products is never simple. Long-term durability, safety testing, manufacturing scale-up, and regulatory approval are all still major hurdles. So far, the technology has only been used on animals. The device was tested in rodents, where researchers said it reduced hypertension while causing far less damage to surrounding tissue compared to more traditional implants.

Conexeu’s 3D printed breast matrix or “B.R.E.A.S.T.” Image courtesy of Conexeu.

Now Conexeu is developing what it calls the B.R.E.A.S.T. platform, short for Bio-Regenerative Ergonomically Architected Smart Tissue. The company says the technology uses 3D printed extracellular matrix (ECM)-based biomaterials designed to support soft tissue regeneration after breast reconstruction procedures. The broader regenerative platform is being developed under the CXU regenerative brand.

Conexeu CEO Miles D. Harrison said,

“For more than 50 years, breast reconstruction has been defined by substitution, replacing what was lost with a foreign body. We are fundamentally shifting the paradigm from substitution to restoration. Conexeu was founded on the belief that the promise of regenerative medicine is real, but only if it is supported early, advanced with rigor, and translated into clinical practice. The field has accepted repair and implants as the ceiling. We refuse to. If we settle for those limitations, true bio-regeneration will remain out of reach.”

While the firm’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Claudia Chavez-Munoz, stated,

“We did not set out to design a better implant. We set out to eliminate the need for one. By combining controlled 3D architecture with a biomimetic extracellular matrix, we are developing a structure that the body can recognize, integrate, and ultimately replace with its own living tissue.”

Conexeu director Dr. Z. Paul Lorenc added,

“The Conexeu platform is grounded in more than ten years of preclinical evidence across eleven peer-reviewed publications and proprietary preclinical data. Nothing can be more beneficial to a patient than knowing their own body could have the ability to repair and regenerate itself. Whether for reconstructive purposes or for aesthetic autologous breast and body enhancement, Conexeu’s 3D bioprintable matrix offers the potential towards true regenerative medicine.”

Conexeu’s 3D printed breast matrix or “B.R.E.A.S.T.” Image courtesy of Conexeu.

The implant will act as a temporary scaffold that guides the body to gradually replace the structure with its own tissue. The company contrasts this with traditional breast implants made of plastic that remain permanently in the body. The company is printing a regenerative, bioresorbable structure made out of extracellular matrix proteins. This seems different from the polycaprolactone-seeded with cells approach that BellaSeno uses, or the PLLA/PLA that Lattice uses. Conexeu says that its solution is “designed to provide both mechanical support and biological support intended to facilitate direct tissue remodeling rather than merely occupying space.” I’m not sure what this difference actually means, but a new approach could give them a different path to their own IP and solution. But it’s also unclear how this process is actually supposed to work.

Generally, an extrusion-based bioprinter can make a custom structure, and the resulting material is gradually replaced with the body’s own tissue. The differences could lie in the extent of remodeling. With remodeling, the tissue can be simulated much more realistically than simple grown tissues previously have been. It’s unclear which technology or approach actually enables the firm to do this.

Dr. Chavez 3D prints Conexeu’s breast matrix or “B.R.E.A.S.T.” Image courtesy of Conexeu.

The company also has a Ten Minute Tissue product that lets you inject room-temperature ECM into a patient. The company has raised $5 million on an online equity raising platform called Equifund, explaining, “What if we could repair skin like we repaired drywall?” The company there disclosed that it has previously raised $2.6 million. Conexeu is commercializing a University of British Columbia collagen solution and has had an IPO. The company is pre-revenue and has spent $3.9 million in 2025 and $1.7 million in Q1. The firm now holds over $6 million in cash, which should see it through this year. The company is planning a direct listing on Nasdaq on the 21st of May. This listing of 9.4 million shares by current investors will result in their shares being sold, but not provide the firm with additional capital. This is worrying. It is unclear how the company wants to raise additional money after this offering. It is also unclear why the current listing is a sale by investors rather than a capital raise.

Conexeu’s claims seem to be rather optimistic. I can’t really map what they want to do with the current 3D prints and how this will easily and quickly lead to a solution. The company also says it plans to pursue the FDA’s 510(k) pathway for certain indications, despite presenting the technology as a highly novel regenerative solution. I’m rather skeptical about their claims.

“The cool factor carries you to a point. But not a sustainable point,” Church said. “Early demonstrations were impressive, often even spectacular, but they did not always translate into real-world performance or viable manufacturing. The industry could generate excitement, but it struggled to generate adoption.” 

That’s a big part of what has held back additive electronics, Church told me during my visit to nScrypt’s headquarters in Orlando. The executive and AM industry veteran traces the roots of this effort back to the late 1990s, when DARPA began pushing for what would later be called additive electronics. 

“At the time, the expectations were aggressive, even by DARPA standards. Researchers were asked to print fine-feature electronics, including resistors, capacitors, inductors, and antennas, on unconventional substrates such as paper, all while maintaining low temperatures and tight tolerances,” he recalled. “They said, we want 10 micron line widths. We want you to print on paper. We want resistors, capacitors, inductors, antennas, and batteries. That was 1999… super challenging.” 

The funding was substantial, and the technical progress was real. But once those programs ended, the industry was left to stand on its own, and that is where reality set in. 

“Materials were not yet ready. Performance did not match what engineers were used to. And perhaps most importantly, additive systems were not competing in a vacuum; they were competing against decades of refinement in traditional electronics manufacturing,” Church went on. “We sort of stubbed our toe. Our performance was not good.” 

The gap was especially clear when it came to materials. Traditional electronics are built around copper, which has become the industry standard not because it is perfect, but because it is consistent, cost-effective, and deeply integrated into design and manufacturing workflows. Additive systems, in contrast, often relied on silver-based materials, which behave differently and come with their own tradeoffs. 

“Industry was used to copper. All the design specifications were around the conductivity of copper. We mostly dealt in silver; it didn’t oxidize, but it’s considerably more expensive. That’s where things start to break down. Even when additive works, it doesn’t always match what engineers expect, because those expectations come from copper. So a lot of the time it’s being judged against standards it was never meant to meet,” Church explained. “If I tell you, ‘I could make that phone for you, but all you could do is call grandma,’ you’re gonna say, ‘that is so cool… but no thanks.’” 

An nScrypt 3Dn-450-HP system, a “Factory in a Tool” (FiT) 3D manufacturing system designed for multi-material, high-speed, and high-resolution production.

Over time, that disconnect forced nScrypt to change how it approached the market. Instead of trying to replace traditional electronics completely, the company began focusing on where additive manufacturing could offer something fundamentally different. 

“Whether we like it or not, we are competing with state-of-the-art. That realization led to a more grounded strategy for us, one that emphasized fit over ambition. Rather than attempting to replicate entire devices, we began identifying specific use cases where additive methods provide clear advantages.” Then he added, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That’s how we look at it. Where do we fit? We fit one bite at a time.” 

That idea has become something of a guiding principle for the company. Additive electronics won’t happen all at once; it will grow step by step, where it actually solves real problems. 

And those “bites” show up where traditional electronics start to struggle. That includes things like printing on curved parts, flexible circuits, or building electronics into structures: things that flat boards just can’t do. 

“The people we’re most successful with are the ones who have real pain points,” Church said. “They tell us, ‘We have a problem that a flat board can’t fix,’ and that’s when we say, ‘Okay, let’s talk.’” 

Ken Church and Vanesa Listek at nScrypt headquarters.

At the same time, Church is careful to define the limits of the technology. Not every application is a good fit, and not every problem should be approached with additive methods. 

“If you need a million [dots] a second, then that’s not for us. That is not who we are. And that level of clarity is important in a field that has often been driven by broad claims.” 

It too reflects a change in the message. Rather than positioning additive electronics as a “next generation” solution, nScrypt has begun framing it as something more immediate and practical. 

Even with that shift, one of the biggest challenges is still the mindset. Engineers and designers are still trained within the constraints of traditional materials and processes. Their tools, their assumptions, and their expectations are all built around those systems, noted Church. 

“All your designers learned how to design around copper. All your software was set around copper. When additive enters that environment, it is often judged against those same benchmarks, even when those benchmarks do not apply. We still make a great circuit,” he said. “But because we did not match your specifications, therefore, we were a failure.” 

To move forward, Church argues that the industry needs to rethink how success is defined. Instead of asking whether additive matches traditional specifications, the more important question is whether it achieves the same functional outcome. 

When those circuits work, whether they’re flat, flexible, or printed on a curve, the conversation starts to change. At that point, AM isn’t just a novelty; it becomes a real tool.

This article is the first in a three-part series based on 3DPrint.com’s visit to nScrypt’s headquarters in Orlando and conversations with Ken Church.

Images courtesy of 3DPrint.com

The Flashforge Creator 5. Image courtesy of FlashForge.

Flash Studio will now let you turn a file into a multi-color 3D print quite simply. The integration is for the Creator 5 printer. The Creator is a very important machine for Flashforge. Competitors like Bambu Lab, Snapmaker, Elegoo, and Creality have surged ahead while former mainstay Flashforge has lingered. The brand needs to make the leap to more software-centric machines that deliver on speed and reliability.

The quad-toolhead Creator starts at around $800 and is said to reduce purge waste during multi-color printing. Flashforge has also looked at optimizing the laminar airflow across the bed and air purification. Toolheads reportedly swap in 7 seconds, and the firm says the system can print color parts up to 4 times faster than comparable Bambu Lab systems. The CoreXY printer offers a 256 × 256 × 256 mm build volume, vibration compensation, automated bed leveling, and TPU support. The machine seems sensible. But in a crowded desktop space already filled with excellent printer options, we don’t know yet if that is good enough.

Meshy AI’s platform can generate printable 3D models and textures directly from text prompts. Image courtesy of Meshy AI.

The Meshy integration could give Flashforge an edge and make it easier to make things. The company promises true one-click conversions from AI files to prints. They say that they have “texture-to-filament color mapping works directly with the Creator 5’s four-head, zero-purge architecture, so what users see on screen maps to filament colors without manual assignment in the slicer.”

Manual color assignment is no longer needed. Slicer configuration is automatic as well. Overall, this should make it easier to print with color. A user can now also, in Flash Studio, describe an object, and an STL is generated, textures are mapped to filament colors, and the user can then print. Then the quad tool head Creator will print it. The company also thinks that these tools will give their prints a harder surface and smoother curves.

Software is moving to the fore in 3D printing. Formlabs has a closed system that makes printing easy and repeatable. This system is now being replicated by several of the largest desktop 3D printing vendors. Under threat is the open-source, open-architecture world of desktop material extrusion. Often, these firms do use tools like Klipper, Orca, and others, but the UI grafted onto them is very much a proprietary thing. Through server-based tools and operations, more is being done away from the user, centralized by the manufacturer. This is leading to difficulties as some firms are unable to compete in software. Other open-source firms are also having to work harder to keep up with slick interfaces. And specialized, smaller 3D printer builders will find it difficult to keep up with the latest technologies. Power is being concentrated in the hands of far fewer firms that sell millions of printers. Flashforge is now turning to an external party and AI to stay ahead of the curve. Will it work? We shall see as the competition on the desktop continues, now moving from machine control and tool pathing to authoring.

ATLIX Consolidates Presence in Spain with Strategic Distribution Partnership

In a recently announced strategic distribution partnership, ATLIX, which manufactures industrial-grade metal LPBF systems, has appointed Excelencia Tech Group as its official distributor for the Spanish market. Based at DFactory Barcelona, Excelencia Tech is supported by a team of AM experts and operates a national network of three offices across Spain, covering the entirety of the AM workflow, both metals and polymers. ATLIX was born from the AM division of TRUMPF, and the Spanish market is an important territory for the brand, what with its strong base in aerospace, automotive, and industrial manufacturing. Per the distribution agreement, Excelencia Tech will bring the TruPrint LPBF platform from ATLIX to Spanish industrial manufacturers, offering customers access to sales, application support, and service through a local partner, while also consolidating ATLIX’s commercial presence in Spain.

Marino Ferrarese, Head of Sales and Marketing, ATLIX, said, “Spain is a strategically important market for ATLIX, and Excelencia Tech is exactly the kind of partner we look for: deep technical expertise, proven service infrastructure, and a shared commitment to driving real industrial adoption of metal additive manufacturing.”

Timeplast Closes $5 Million Regulation CF Campaign, Powered by DealMaker

Materials science company Timeplast, which pioneers sustainable materials and AI-enabled 3D printing, announced the close of its oversubscribed $5 million Regulation CF campaign, powered by the DealMaker investment technology platform. This raise added nearly 10,000 new retail investors to the company’s cap-table: the same investors who purchased thousands of its sustainable straws just six hours after they launched. Timeplast has over 80 proprietary 3D printing filaments in its portfolio, including what it calls the first 3D printable soap and a retroreflective holographic filament. The company is now developing its next big product, a sub-$1,000, AI-powered 3D printer called the Manifester that will potentially turn voice commands into finished objects. Instead of routing the buyers of this recent campaign through a marketplace, Timeplast ran the offering through DealMaker’s white-labeled platform, so it could maintain ownership of the investor data and have a direct path to the community backing its products.

“We didn’t want to rent our investor relationships. DealMaker lets us own the data and build a direct relationship with the people backing us,” said Manuel Rendón, CEO and Founder, Timeplast. “That’s a fundamentally different outcome than showing up as one logo among many.”

IMDEA Materials & UC3M Collaborate to Better Understand 3D Printed Metals

A team of researchers from IMDEA Materials and the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) worked with research institutes in Japan and France to better understand fracture mechanics of 3D printed metals. They had a major breakthrough and found how 3D printed metals can fail under extreme impact. As they explained in their paper, the researchers focused on AlSi10Mg and Ti-6Al-4V, both commonly used alloys in LPBF 3D printing. At the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), the team used strong X-ray beams to look inside the materials in real time while they were being struck at velocities of up to 750 meters a second. At first, the material is compressed by the shock wave, which causes pores to collapse. But, as the material starts to experience tension, the pores reopen and grow larger, eventually linking together to form an internal crack that leads to a Spall Fracture, which is harder to detect and analyze. This research could be very helpful for applications with components exposed often to intense dynamic loads, like aerospace and defense.

“Altogether, this paper provides new insights into dynamic tensile fracture of 3D-printed metals. It does so by leveraging the latest advances in fast X-ray phase-contrast imaging and high-resolution tomography, while establishing a systematic protocol to investigate void collapse and spall failure mechanisms in porous materials subjected to shock loading,” explained Dr. Javier García Molleja, a researcher from IMDEA Materials.

Bieber and Skylrk also released a 3D printed sneaker at the end of last year with Zellerfeld, the Brooklyn-based, avant-garde design house responsible for a large chunk of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) products launched in partnership with celebrity-owned brands that have popped up in recent years. Around the same time as its Biebs collab, Zellerfeld also announced the launch of a basketball shoe prototype in partnership with Celtics’ All-Star Jaylen Brown’s 741 Performance.

Considering the Brooklyn company’s repeated work with Nike, Zellerfeld may see deals with athletes as an attractive lane going forward, especially given how common it has become for professional athletes to pursue second careers as entrepreneurs. Baron Davis, who just launched the fashion brand OverDose on the back of his own 3D printed shoe deal with Zellerfeld, was a pioneer in the modern era of pivoting from pro sports to business ventures.

After retiring from the NBA in 2012, Davis has branched out into just about everything: Hollywood producing, cannabis, venture capital, and even rapping (he’s good, too!). It’s indeed a bit shocking that it took this long for Davis to get into fashion.

The first sneaker launch from Davis and OverDose is the OD Easy PZ, a $199.00, limited release drop in five color ways. OverDose is categorizing the Easy PZ as a “recovery sneaker,” which is a growing area of the footwear market that targets consumers who are into fitness and are looking for extra comfort in their post-workout hours.

According to Davis, the Eazy PZ’s were designed to embody OverDose’s ‘From Analog to AI’ ethos:

“I came from a time where the game, the culture, and the product were all connected, but ownership wasn’t,” Davis said. “This is about changing that. ‘From Analog to AI’ is about taking everything we grew up on and building it into something new, where creators actually control what they create.”

This aligns perfectly with what Zellerfeld has been building throughout this decade. It also ties in precisely with Davis’s venture capital brand, Business Inside the Game (BIG), which was created expressly to support ‘multi-hyphenates’ like Davis; the BIG website refers to Davis as “the athlete/creator/entrepreneur/investor/founder.”

Indeed, that seems to hit the nail on the head in terms of the value proposition that AM offers for celebrity-backed product launches. Anyone who remembers the fiasco that ensued when the Ball Brothers’ father, LaVar Ball, launched Big Baller Brand back in the 2010s, knows that it’s virtually impossible to stand up an entire sneaker supply chain on your own and have it be competitive, when sneakers are neither your expertise nor your main focus. The same goes for essentially any manufactured good one might try to sell.

By partnering with Zellerfeld, on the other hand, entrepreneurs like Davis can test the waters in the footwear space without having to become full-time sneaker moguls. That also helps capture what’s most lucrative about these types of launches, which is the appeal for consumers interested in limited edition items.

Footwear may be the space where this is most prevalent, currently, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t spread to other product categories, with athletic equipment jumping to mind most immediately. In fact, it will be interesting to see if Davis himself has plans for targeting that market with his BIG platform.

Images courtesy of Zellerfeld/OverDose

Among BMW’s metal 3D printers is this TruPrint 5000 from Atlix. Image courtesy of BMW.

The European narrative goes something like this: Chinese companies are subsidized by the government, engage in IP theft, engage in unfair competition, make low-quality products, and European firms should not demean themselves by engaging in a race to the bottom. Let’s sidestep this discussion for now. Whether this is true or partially true is irrelevant. What is relevant to me is that, by believing this, many entrepreneurs and companies are limiting their strategic choices. I actually do think that you should see if you can race to the bottom, because it may just be that you can win. I also think that seeing yourself as a victim removes your agency. Somehow, your failure isn’t your fault, and somehow, you can now explore fewer options for countering the competition. I also think that bemoaning the other’s advantages is irrelevant. I see a lot of inaction and fatalism in the face of Chinese competition and think that this may be very damaging to Europe as a whole. Furthermore, in my experience, there are real advantages that Chinese entrepreneurs and businesses bring to the table. There are real advantages in zeal, flexibility, vision, and speed.

Zeal

I’ve seen a lot of deals won by Chinese firms because they’re just hungrier for success. Chinese firms will try harder and put in more effort for the deal. In terms of application development and customer service, we’ve seen success because these departments do more for customers at no extra cost. We see a real “conquer the world” attitude by firms. Staff often see themselves at the foot of a mountain of opportunity for them and their employers. It’s not just a job but a change for immense growth. A lot of times, individual Chinese teams just seem to work harder to get the opportunity.

BMW’s metal 3D printer lineup includes this TruPrint 5000 from Atlix. Image courtesy of BMW.

Flexibility

Chinese firms have also shown a lot of flexibility to secure a deal. In customizing the product, introducing new materials, making changes to roadmaps, and adapting to their customers’ circumstances, they seem to do more than that. Western firms will say, “No, we can’t do that,” a lot. That’s not our market, that’s not how we do things, that’s not our style, we’ve never done this before, etc. This then results in hesitation. Sticking to your guns and principles is good. But often companies just say no reflexively and dig in their heels. Sometimes nonsensical policies or entrenched behaviors wreck deals. I’m not saying that you always have to say yes to the customer, but that there needs to be a reason for your no. And you know what? Often, there isn’t a reason, and people say no when they mean “we haven’t done that before.”

Vision

A number of large Western 3D printing incumbents do not have a strategy. Many incumbent firms have no particular plan to win or plan to improve themselves. Visionary thinking by CEOs often rings hollow or is not meaningful for the firm’s performance. Western firms tend to be highly amorphous, with many different power structures in place. Often, there is no real goal for the company aside from continuing to exist. There are a lot of companies being run on autopilot. Chinese firms often do not have a strategy beyond a general idea that “there must be growth.” But, without that mindset, Western firms just sleepwalk and amble, not going in any particular direction.

Speed

Additive manufacturing systems from Farsoon, HP, and TRUMPF (now ATLIX) inside BMW Group’s AMC. Image courtesy of BMW.

The biggest difference, however, is in the speed of execution. Chinese firms are often just much faster at changes and responses in general. There is a lot of hesitation and structural slowness in many Western firms. Especially in decisions affecting multiple departments, we can see a marked slowness.

Negatives

Now, all of this is necessarily a generalization. And Chinese firms are not better in all respects. The language barrier is difficult, which inhibits effective customer service and application development. Chinese firms are often hampered by not having enough people overseas and by disconnects between home and away teams. Chinese firms can be fickle. Sometimes run by the whims of founders, companies can turn on a dime, but this can also be chaotic. Scrambling for growth, a long-term focus, and increased capability is sometimes not enough of a concern. Sudden firings, changes of direction, and new policies can often confuse customers. Speed often causes quality to suffer, and there is a real problem with long-term performance and part quality in devices.

But my point is that there seem to be real advantages, especially in securing new business, in the Chinese way of doing things. Rather than complain and feel like helpless victims, Western firms should strive to become more flexible, faster, and better aligned.

Here, I’ll provide a baseline argument for why all of those infrastructure themes ultimately lead back to the one that gets all of the attention.

The AI boom isn’t about AI (yet)…

Featured image courtesy of 3DPrint.com: Data centers.

That shift is one of the areas Dr. Mikhail Gladkikh has been focused on throughout his career. Before joining Würth Additive Group as Global Director of Technology and Technical Projects, he spent 17 years at Baker Hughes, working across research, engineering, logistics, program management, M&A, and AM in mission-critical industries.

Mikhail Gladkikh. Image courtesy of Mikhail Gladkikh via LinkedIn.

With a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, Gladkikh’s background spans oil and gas, turbomachinery, hydrodynamics, and advanced manufacturing systems operating in highly regulated industries. More recently, he has focused on digital inventory and distributed manufacturing, helping lead the launch of Würth Additive Group’s Digital Inventory Services (DIS) platform, designed to enable secure, traceable digital supply chains through AM. Outside of his professional work, Gladkikh is also a lifelong learner and science fiction author whose books include Out of Time, reflecting his longtime interest in future technologies and big ideas.

3DPrint.com spoke with Gladkikh about digital inventory, distributed manufacturing, supply chain sovereignty, and why AM could play a major role in the future of global supply chains.

What is Würth and what is the value proposition?

Gladkikh: The Würth Group is a worldwide wholesaler of fasteners, screws, and accessories. Würth expanded its range and today offers a full range of business equipment for craft businesses. Würth offers dowels, chemicals, electronics, furniture, construction fasteners, hardware, automotive parts, tools, machines, installation materials, and inventory management, among other products and solutions.

The Group, made up of more than 400 companies across over 80 countries, has been servicing the automotive, woodworking, metalworking, industrial, and construction industries.

Würth connects millions of suppliers and customers and manages inventory across a wide variety of channels. The Group has a large operational footprint, with warehouses and last-mile delivery mechanisms in many countries, which makes it a unique supply chain partner for many companies and individuals. The company says it is a leader in managing both physical and digital supply chains.

What is the Digital Supply Chain?

Gladkikh: Let’s think about what a supply chain is and what it does. First and foremost, it is a mechanism to ensure uninterrupted business operations that require physical parts and materials.

Like any business process, supply chains come with inherent risks. Those can include disruptions such as strikes, blocked shipping routes, supplier shortages, or sudden changes in market demand.

Traditionally, companies have managed those risks through physical inventory. Manufacturers buffer against uncertainty by keeping parts on shelves, which often means tooling investments for every geometry, minimum order quantities that lead to overproduction, thousands of SKUs spread across warehouses, and complex logistics networks moving goods from factories to distribution centers and eventually to customers.

Digital supply chains approach the problem differently. The safety net is information, specifically certified manufacturing recipes with material specifications and quality control. Instead of storing large quantities of finished parts, companies can store digital manufacturing files and raw materials such as powders, filaments, or resins that can be used to produce many different geometries on demand.

In this model, production moves closer to the point of need, reducing inventory requirements, international shipping costs, tooling costs, and some tariff exposure associated with moving physical goods across borders.

In the end, you still need parts, not just information. How does the Digital Supply Chain address that?

Gladkikh: Yes, digital inventory still requires physical production. The file must become a part. The idea is to move that production as close to the point of use as possible to avoid all sorts of waste, including the waste of making and holding inventory that may never be used.

This is where material science, machine qualification, process parameters, and post-processing all matter. The digital-to-physical gap is where AM professionals add the most value.

The future supply chain will likely be a hybrid system combining digital and physical infrastructure. That includes the digital distribution of encrypted manufacturing recipes with intellectual property protection, quality assurance, and OEM certification, alongside a physical network of machines and materials located close to the point of use to produce parts when needed. It also requires supply chain infrastructure capable of managing both the digital and physical sides of manufacturing, as well as traditional last-mile delivery and transportation systems to move finished parts where they are needed.

A digital supply chain is a complex system of interdependent digital and physical tools and processes. Companies without a deep understanding of both components will not be successful.

Why Additive and how does it fit into the Digital Supply Chain?

Gladkikh: AM is a perfect fit for the digital supply chain since it is already digital by design. The manufacturing machine instructions exist as a digital file prepared by the engineer and executed by the printer.

What happens to the traditional roles in the value chain? From OEM to End User?

Gladkikh: In general, the system becomes more flexible, and some roles can be combined. In a traditional approach, there is always an IP Owner, usually a product company, that creates and owns the part design. The IP Owner might subcontract an engineering firm to redesign the part for AM.

Then there is the manufacturer, usually the same entity as the IP Owner, which follows digital instructions and makes physical objects. Then there is a distributor delivering the physical parts to the end user where actual demand exists.

When you replace this physical flow with information, some roles can be combined or even interchanged. The end user could become the manufacturer, while the IP Owner receives royalties on its intellectual property rights without having to physically produce anything. Think about digital platforms for music or book distribution.

What are the critical concepts? What must be in place to enable a Digital Supply Chain with distributed manufacturing?

Gladkikh: I’d like to mention three pillars of distributed manufacturing.

First, there is supply chain sovereignty. Companies want to be in control. This fits into the “right to repair” paradigm. To ensure operational continuity, companies want to assert ownership downstream.

Second, it is not about simply printing a part. It is about qualifying the whole process and ensuring every step is in conformance with the manufacturing router. This includes proper raw material controls, manufacturing steps, post-processing, assembly, and proper quality control mechanisms dictated by the IP Owner. This also includes proper safety measures and machine maintenance. All of this must be recorded and accessible at any time as a paper trail for provenance and audit purposes.

Third, because we are separating design, manufacturing, and end use, proper liability-sharing mechanisms must be in place, and IP protection must remain a top priority.

Würth Additive Group has launched a Digital Inventory Service. What is it and how is it positioned?

Gladkikh: DIS is a sovereign manufacturing execution layer designed as a cloud-to-edge encrypted delivery platform.

Think about it as Netflix for manufacturing.

The Würth Group already connects millions of customers with millions of suppliers in a traditional distribution and supply chain model. We added a digital supply chain channel that works as described above and is available through the same programs and channels our customers already use.

It gives customers greater control and sovereignty over their supply chains, allowing them to operate more efficiently without tying up capital in inventory sitting on shelves that may never be used.

At the same time, it frees suppliers from the need to manufacture, package, and ship physical goods, since they are instead compensated for making their manufacturing recipes available digitally. Everybody wins.

Metal AM component produced on the Alpha 140. Image courtesy of the Würth Additive Group.

For Gladkikh, the conversation around digital supply chains is becoming increasingly urgent as manufacturers face geopolitical instability, supply disruptions, and growing pressure to localize production. He believes companies need to approach the transition strategically, starting with a clear understanding of their business needs, operational pain points, and applications where AM can provide real value.

At the same time, he cautions against using 3D printing simply because the technology is available.

“Should this be printed?” Gladkikh said. That is ultimately a more important question than whether it simply could be.