Nikon believes metal Additive Manufacturing can become its next billion-dollar business. Backed by significant cumulative investment, the company is concentrating on defence, qualification strategy and production economics rather than general rapid expansion. Hamid Zarringhalam, in conversation with Martin McMahon and Nick Williams, explores how semiconductor-style process control and long equipment lifecycles underpin Nikon’s approach – and why execution, not enthusiasm, will determine how AM delivers durable industrial scale.
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Following our interview with Hamid Zarringhalam in the preceding article, Metal AM travelled to Nikon Advanced Manufacturing’s Long Beach, California facility to examine how the company’s defence-led strategy is being executed in practice. Reporting for Metal AM magazine, Martin McMahon toured the production floors, qualification laboratories and large-format NXG installations supporting U.S. defence programmes, assessing how Nikon is translating capital investment and policy alignment into repeatable process control, production throughput and industrial-scale capability.
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For Colnago, one of cycling’s most prestigious brands, the Steelnovo represents a showcase project – a modern interpretation of what the ‘perfect’ road bike might look like. Instead of the titanium more commonly used for additively manufactured frame lugs, the company worked with Additiva Srl and ATLIX to develop complex 316L steel nodes combined with Columbus steel tubing. Metal Additive Manufacturing magazine’s Nick Williams explores how the project demonstrates the potential of AM to modernise traditional materials while preserving the distinctive ride quality associated with steel frames.
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Additive Manufacturing is advancing rapidly across the defence sector, but technology alone does not deliver operational advantage. The real challenge is integration – linking machines, materials, data, and logistics into systems that can perform under operational pressure. In this article, MG (Ret.) Edward F Dorman III, former US Army theater sustainment commander and a recognised authority on contested logistics and defence industrial integration, assesses the current state of advanced manufacturing within the United States defence ecosystem and the implications for the future of US military sustainment and manufacturing.
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Wire-based Directed Energy Deposition (DED) is becoming one of the most practical routes for manufacturing large metal components, offering higher deposition rates and better material utilisation than many powder-based Additive Manufacturing processes. Yet wire-based DED is not a single technology category. Laser, electron beam, and arc-based systems each present different trade-offs in precision, productivity, thermal control, and industrial practicality. In this article, WAAM3D examines how these process families compare and why newer dual-wire approaches are expanding the industrial potential of large-scale metal AM.
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Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2026 offered a revealing snapshot of an industry entering a more sober phase. The discussions in New York were less about disruption and more about execution: how capital cycles shape machine sales, why software and ecosystems may determine who scales, and where polymer and metal Additive Manufacturing follow very different economic paths. If there was a common thread, it was that AM’s future will depend less on technology claims and more on solving specific industrial problems. Joseph Kowen reports.
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Although Haynes® 282® offers an excellent balance of weldability, creep strength and high-temperature stability, processing via metal Additive Manufacturing presents challenges. Steep thermal gradients during deposition can promote hot cracking and porosity, narrowing the process window. In this article, Spain’s Etxetar explores what is required to industrialise laser and powder-based Directed Energy Deposition (DED) of this alloy. It shows how adoption depends on aligning feedstock quality, deposition strategy and hardware configuration, using IG-series heads to demonstrate how nozzle design, monitoring and toolpaths are tailored to application requirements.
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In high-temperature propulsion applications, it is materials that set the boundaries of what is possible. Additive Manufacturing may have changed how we build components, but it hasn’t necessarily changed what extremes these components can endure in service. NASA’s GRX-810 oxide-dispersion-strengthened superalloy tackles that constraint head-on: a high-temperature alloy designed, unlike legacy alloys, specifically for AM. Here, NASA’s Tim Smith and Paul Gradl explain how GRX-810 was developed, what has been demonstrated to date, and the pathway to commercial success.
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Ahead of its Formnext launch, Metal AM was invited to EOS’s facilities near Munich, Germany, for an exclusive preview of the new EOS M4 ONYX and in-depth discussions with the developers, product managers, and senior leadership behind it. What emerges is a development story shaped by customer priorities: not a departure into record-breaking extremes, but a focused evolution designed to deliver what production users value most. Dr Martin McMahon, Nick Williams, and Emma Lawn examine the technical priorities behind this response – process stability and repeatability, scan-field strategy, powder and waste handling, and the software controls supporting qualified series production.
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The inaugural Vicenza Symposium, which took place from September 2-4, 2025, brought jewellery manufacturers, researchers and industry leaders to Italy’s ‘Capital of Gold’ for three days of technical exchange in the UNESCO-listed Basilica Palladiana. Metal Additive Manufacturing featured prominently, from a striking Bulgari case study to research on hard-to-build precious metal alloys and emerging work on the Binder Jetting of gold. In this report, Michela Ferraro presents insights from three selected presentations, based on in-depth conversations with the authors.
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As manufacturers push towards higher Additive Manufacturing throughput, the limitations of traditional support removal methods become increasingly visible. Manual practices cannot reliably meet the safety, repeatability, and cost targets required for industrial Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB). toolcraft’s SupportBlaster 320-HA offers a semi-automated alternative, using dry-ice pellets to detach supports in a controlled manner. In this article, Joseph Kowen reviews the technology’s development, underlying process physics, and experimental data, highlighting its relevance for more scalable metal AM production.
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As metal Additive Manufacturing shifts toward larger, higher-value components, conventional AM simulation often fails to scale and remains focused on prediction rather than actionable process improvement. PanOptimization’s PanX seeks to address this gap with a scalable, high-fidelity Finite Element Analysis (FEA) solver for PBF-LB and DED that supports feed-forward optimisation of parameters, timing, and distortion compensation. In this article, Erik Denlinger and Pan Michaleris examine the technical innovations enabling next-generation AM simulation and the commercial implications for throughput and yield, as well as market directions.
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