NAMIC GAMS 2025: Additive as a Tool for Resilience and Agility

This year’s National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) Global AM Summit (GAMS) began once again with a speech by Dr. Ho Chaw Sing, the head of NAMIC. He opened the show with references to great uncertainty from geopolitical tensions and climate change. He spoke of livelihoods being under threat from climate change and superstorms. Being stuck in a hotel in the Philippines during one of these recently gave him pause for thought, about the role additive manufacturing could play in reducing the impact of climate change. More sustainable manufacturing practices, improved labor productivity, and growing deep tech in Singapore in tandem also very important to him. Retooling manufacturing and upskilling were real themes for him as well.

NAMIC is always a wonderful event in Singapore, well-organized and held in a lovely location. A lovely place that was a beacon for international trade, chip and electronics manufacturing, and finance, Singapore was a stable place that brought the West and East together. Now with globalization, trade, and the global order under threat, Singapore’s place in the world is, too. Additive could be a solution to creating new opportunities and new resilience. The tone of the event is more serious, and rather than our technology alone, the focus is very much on our technology in a fractious world.

Beh Kian Teik, the CEO of Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), also continued on this theme, talking about “scale not just through volume, through agility, through speed, through customization…this is why Additive Manufacturing… is so essential.” Manufacturing is 20% of Singapore´s GDP, and he thinks that additive has come a long way, noting that “…today..it is a true production technology.” He thinks that additive “plays to Singapore’s strengths…and that progress has always come through partnerships.”

He announced an MOU through a partnership between NAMIC and the Singaporean Army for a digital file repository and part productions on demand. He also spoke about making additive more accessible for SME’s and working to bring down equipment costs, technology access, and education. He hopes that additive will give resilience and agility to the local industry and bring customization needs to local companies.

Next up was Terry Wohlers of Wohlers Associates and ASTM International, who stated that “Singapore is on the bleeding edge of the technology.” He showcased lots of interesting use cases, like an aircraft seat for Singapore Airlines that didn’t have to be replaced because of a $1 part that solved the problem. Wohlers also showed the OPPO phone hinge, which has been printed over 1.5 million times, and a GE helicopter engine, which allowed the company to reduce the supplier count to one through its use of additive. Wohlers thinks that additive has truly changed manufacturing in hearing aids and dental applications, and that Singapore has been at the forefront of this development.

Subsequently, I moderated a panel, “Can Additive Rebuild Resilience in a Disrupted Global Trade Landscape?” Panelists were Wohlers; Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, the Managing Partner of AMPOWER; Jeanne Ong, Director of Ecosystem and Internationalisation at NAMIC; Ehsan Toyserkani, Director of the University of Waterloo’s Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing Lab; and Kitty Wang, Founder at 3D Science Valley. They talked about resilience and how 3D printing could help, and about how localized manufacturing could succeed with additive for some parts and applications, though people were more skeptical about containerized manufacturing. Most felt that 3D printing would be just one applicable technology and would be part of a solution. Schmidt-Lehr was much more optimistic than Wohlers about the possible resurgence of a desktop 3D printing revolution, however. Generally, we all felt that 3D printing can really play a role in making countries and organizations more resilient, but we should be very realistic about the capabilities of the technology and where to apply it.

All in all, it was a day filled with learning, meeting new people, and a realistic feeling about additive. Rather than “pie in the sky” dreams, people were looking for real examples and real use cases for the technology. This is a healthy step in the right direction to realistically implementing additive when and where it works.