At the 2025 AMUG Conference, industry leaders delivered a clear message: additive manufacturing is maturing beyond prototyping and hype, driven by real-world demands for localisation, sustainability, and production agility. Executives from Würth Additive Group, Stratasys, DMG MORI, GoEngineer, and SME converged around a shared theme—technology alone is no longer enough. Adoption hinges on quantifiable value, process integration, workforce readiness, and a shift away from proprietary ecosystems. With lifecycle analysis, decentralised production, and AI-powered design gaining traction, the additive manufacturing sector is recalibrating for scale and resilience across both industrial and consumer-facing applications. Würth Additive Group’s AJ Strandquist speaking at the 2025 AMUG Conference. Photo by Michael Petch. Key Takeaways from the Diamond Sponsor panel The Monday panel, moderated by Adam J. Penna, drew out insights from the conference’s Diamond sponsors, emphasizing a strategic commitment to additive manufacturing.  Additive’s future depends as much on integration and education as it does on technology: Training, software usability, and standards will be as decisive as 3D printer specs or material advances.Generative AI is lowering creative barriers, just as additive tech is becoming cheaper and more available. The intersection of AI and AM could trigger a new wave of decentralised, design-driven manufacturing. Sustainability is not a ‘nice to have’—it’s aligning with procurement logic, especially when it also delivers cost, speed, and operational continuity. Emergency logistics is a hidden emissions sink: while flying to deliver a missing bolt might be an extreme case there is a huge sustainability argument for distributed additive manufacturing. Additive Manufacturing Leaders Highlight AI, Automation and Productivity Gaps Representing a cross-section of stakeholders from machine OEMs to digital solutions providers, the panelists underscored the critical role of industrial AM in reshaping supply chains, national defense, and manufacturing resilience. Speaking on behalf of SME, a nonprofit that champions manufacturing innovation, Stacey Eeman, Director of Industry Strategy, made the organization’s mission clear, “We are here to help convene and educate… to build supplier resiliency and competitiveness for national security.” SME’s presence, she added, is tightly linked to its emphasis on defense-sector adoption and cross-sector knowledge transfer. Stratasys, a cornerstone of polymer additive manufacturing, is shifting its posture to align with more defined industrial outcomes. “We deal with some of the most challenging customers in the business; they’re coming up with the hardest problems,” said Foster Ferguson, VP of Industrial Business at Stratasys. Drawing from his two decades of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, Ferguson emphasized the importance of listening to end-users to align product development with mission-critical needs. AJ Strandquist, CEO of Würth Additive Group, highlighted the company’s strategic evolution from a distribution-focused enterprise into a digital manufacturing solutions provider. Initially embedding AM to support internal manufacturing, Würth quickly discovered the legal, IP, and compliance complexities of integrating AM at scale. This led to the development of a proprietary software platform designed to manage digital inventory and production workflows. “We learned internally what was required,” Strandquist noted, “and ended up bringing it to the show.” DMG MORI’s Additive Solutions General Manager Alex Richard framed additive as part of a broader transformation of industrial technology portfolios. His team, overseeing both sales and engineering across the U.S., is integrating additive into subtractive-heavy customer bases, with a view to offering hybrid production ecosystems. “The need for future manufacturing to include additive,” he said, “is now foundational.” Tyler Reid, VP of Digital Manufacturing at GoEngineer, delivered a grassroots perspective rooted in engineering enablement. “We convert dreamers into builders,” he said, referencing the firm’s emphasis on technical enablement. With nearly 20 technical staff on-site, GoEngineer—one of the largest value-added resellers —focuses on tool access, hands-on support, and vertical integration of design-to-print workflows.  “We’re starting to see just glimpses of [AI], but it’s a type of technology that as soon as it hits, it hits hard,” said Reid. “We need to figure out how to smartly implement AI into product workflows—trying to get to a point where additive solutions are ready for production.” He also projected a near-term surge in consumer-facing 3D printing, likening the effect of generative design and AI to a tipping point in visual inspiration. “The barrier to creation is about to collapse. Three years from now, consumer demand for personal printers will be on another level.” Ferguson of Stratasys reinforced that AI and automation are only part of the solution. “The real problem is framing the problem. What are we trying to solve?” he said, adding that strategic partnerships will be essential as no single OEM can cover the entire value chain. Stratasys, for example, increasingly works with partners across post-processing and validation technologies to deliver what Ferguson called “site-to-site repeatability and accuracy” at scale. He stressed that beyond the visible aspects of polymer 3D printing, the backend infrastructure—from materials logistics to field service—is what enables scale. For metal-focused manufacturing, DMG MORI’s Richard outlined a challenge rooted in long-term industrial productivity. He underscored that traditional subtractive machines are unlikely to be replaced one-for-one due to demographic and economic constraints. “There are 5 million machine tools out there now. Collectively, the industry will probably only build a million more over the next 30 years,” he said. “We don’t have the workforce to build or operate machines at that historic scale.” Richard emphasized that his team is addressing this productivity gap by engineering systems capable of producing five times more output than today’s standard machines. DMG MORI’s focus lies in the total process chain—design, build, and post-process—with additive playing an increasingly integral role. “It’s about how we support that process chain… how do we do it efficiently, how do we make individual machines more productive, and how do we build systems that can support more with fewer people?” Stacey Eeman of SME speaking at the 2025 AMUG Conference. Photo by Michael Petch. From Prototype to Production: Additive Manufacturing’s Push into Defense and Distributed Logistics AJ Strandquist, CEO of Würth Additive Group, emphasised the systemic challenges of scaling AM beyond prototyping. “People talk about serial production and think 50,000 pieces in one batch,” he said. “But the real trick is 50,000 prints in 50,000 locations—how do I collect the paperwork for that?” His team’s answer is a software platform built around legacy enterprise requirements. “They’re not going to change for us,” he added. “So the question becomes, how do you take their process and their framework and build around it?” Würth’s software, first unveiled at last year’s AMUG Conference, is designed to address the administrative bottlenecks of decentralized part production, ensuring traceability, certification, and quality documentation at scale. This infrastructure is essential for applications such as forward-positioned inventory and digital warehousing, particularly in military logistics. “You don’t want to be a loose thread,” Strandquist noted. “You want to be woven into the fabric of operations.” DMG MORI described how the company has evolved its additive machines into hybrid systems capable of both subtractive and additive processes. The military sector, long an early adopter of AM for prototyping and tooling, is now pushing for operational deployment. The Army integrated CAD models and digital engineering practices for the first time on the XM30 next-gen combat vehicle, explained SME’s Eeman. “That’s a huge milestone. It shows that digital engineering is finally connecting with real-world defense manufacturing.” Ferguson of Stratasys pointed to real traction in airframe and defense components. “We’ve had strong success with the U.S. Air Force and NAVSEA,” he said. The addressable market is substantial—he cited a $27 billion opportunity in aerospace part production—but winning it requires not just hardware, but qualified, repeatable, traceable workflows.  Strandquist added that usability and mission-readiness are crucial for frontline adoption. Drawing inspiration from the simple instructional cartoon once printed on Bazooka packaging, he underscored that additive systems must be intuitive enough to operate under pressure. “If you can train someone to fire a rocket, you can train them to run an FDM printer,” he said.  Yet not all voices supported the continued prioritisation of the defense sector. Tyler Reid, VP of Digital Manufacturing at GoEngineer, questioned whether the industry had grown too narrow. “Additive is still just 0.2% of global manufacturing,” he said. “Aerospace and defense are exciting, but heavily regulated and hard to scale. We need to expand into tooling and fixturing—accessible areas where production is realistic.” Tyler Reid, GoEngineer at AMUG Conference 2025. Photo by Michael Petch. Additive Manufacturing and the Supply Chain The CEO of Würth Additive Group, outlined how his company’s “Digital Inventory Services” software addresses the realities of additive supply chains. “The software is built to flex from very simple production parts to complex variants,” he said. It manages everything from ERP integration to quality control, tailoring compliance workflows to the nature of each component. “Most companies don’t want every part to go through the same QA as a turbine blade. That’s too much overhead.” Strandquist added that additive’s greatest operational advantage may lie in distributed manufacturing. Würth serves over 4 million customers, with 700,000 working in auto service centres globally, many of which require specialised service tools that are difficult to source due to trade barriers or long logistics chains. “By printing locally to standardised benchmarks, we’ve helped clients eliminate up to 30% of handling costs,” he said. “Instead of importing tools and dealing with customs classifications, they can produce and certify them in-country.” Stacey Eeman of SME added that additive’s most transformative impact may lie in its ability to respond to constraints—be it workforce shortages in welding or supply chain complexity in medical and defense logistics. “Point-of-use production in healthcare means more than it does even for sustainment commands,” she said. “This type of manufacturing gives us a way to act when traditional methods can’t.” Würth Additive Group demo at AMUG Conference 2025. Photo by Michael Petch. Additive Manufacturing Executives Link Sustainability to On-Demand Production and Process Simplification Sustainability is increasingly becoming a quantifiable differentiator for additive manufacturing leaders. The CEO of Würth Additive Group, argued that AM’s ability to localize production offers measurable environmental and operational advantages. “We replaced imported inventory with on-site additive manufacturing in a port city, using the same logistics network,” he said. “The result was a 20% decrease in total emissions. But the real impact shows up in emergency logistics. I’ve had customers put parts on planes—literally fly with them—because a $2 bolt missing can halt a $100,000 operation.” Stratasys is “working with OEMs like Airbus to align additive with long-term sustainability objectives,” said Foster Ferguson. “Localising manufacturing, particularly in depots and shipyards, is not just a green strategy—it’s a resilience strategy.” As Tyler Reid of GoEngineer put it, “Sustainability needs to be built into the ROI, not bolted on.” Stacey Eeman of SME highlighted how “Clean manufacturing is attracting young people with imaginative minds,” she said. “Now it’s up to us to provide the opportunities and pathways to bring them in.” Promising opportunities for additive manufacturing now lie in its ability to reduce emissions through distributed production, compress lead times via process consolidation, and unlock innovation by removing barriers to design and education. Sustainability, sometimes treated as a marketing differentiator, is becoming a measurable input to operational and procurement strategy. At the same time, the sector faces pressure to simplify adoption, standardise processes, and expand beyond its aerospace and defense comfort zone. As technologies like AI accelerate accessibility, the coming wave of adoption may be shaped less by machine specs and more by usability, interoperability, and the ability to serve a broader industrial base.Ready to discover who won the 2024 3D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to stay updated with the latest news and insights. Featured image the AMUG Conference 2025, the view from the top. Photo by Michael Petch.