Formnext 2025: Day Three: We Are the Champignons

Closing out the Champ bar and sitting in the lobby of the Marriott is perhaps not the most healthy of pastimes. Consuming a tower of mini burgers pinned to chicken wings, tiers of cheese-slathered nachos, and onion rings, with many sauces (and incongruously, four carrot sticks), at 22:00 is probably not the best thing either. But, there is no place on earth where I learn more or faster about additive than the Champ Bar. It’s like a daily mini-MBA in AM with a side of wings and some sport you’ll never watch again. Yesterday, at our table with my mates, we had, between the seven of us, over 150 years of additive experience. Another time, I was sitting with two friends who had over 30 years of experience. That sum total of knowledge is hard to aggregate and find anywhere else. What’s more, with people from New Zealand, the UK, the US, and elsewhere, this is a rare time when we’re all together. And we get people from OEMs, services, universities, end users, software people, engineers, desktop people, polymer people, everyone. From PLA to Niobium, it’s all here. So this time is valuable, and indeed, Formnext is one of my favorite times of the year.

Applications

Applications are once again the lifeblood of our industry. I’m a little confused at how some people don’t understand this. It’s as if you’re loudly proclaiming the virtues of TV but not understanding that this TV needs programs. We should have TV without programs, but with money! It’s like somehow managing to string together a sentence without understanding that this sentence is, in fact, made up of words. We are but a means to making. And if we can make a geometry and turn that shape into a solution, we call this developing applications. Sometimes we can turn a CAD file into a part, and this is fine. But most of the time, we have to tweak the part, material, or design in combination to arrive at a functional component that meets the challenge. Often, this means understanding the physics, functionality, purpose, business case, overall business, properties, limits, competitors, and uses of this component in the wider world. Sometimes a part could work, but it would not work long enough, or it would be far too expensive. Sometimes people print a shape that resembles an existing thing, but it does not actually work. This is not an application. This is lost to many at Formnext.

All the parts in the world, therefore, can be divided into four categories: the unmade, the unmakeable, the made, and the broken. Industrializing applications is the journey of an idea to an effective, functional, competitive working solution in the form of a component. Usually, in order for an application to work, it will have to be of significant advantage to all in the value chain. It will probably need to be easy to adopt, and in several dimensions have a concrete, reproducible, provable advantage to those parties in the value chain that can block adoption. It will (and a lot of people struggle here) also need to be advantageous to the end consumer of that article. Typically, if an application only has one advantage, e.g., lightweighting, it will not work unless there is a special circumstance (e.g., F1). Most working applications have multiple advantages. 3D printed acetabular cups, for example, are cheaper, require less stock and less capital, integrate into bone better, have fewer steps, and can lead to lasting IP advantages in superior texture or other properties. With CNC, everyone is equal, but with 3D printing, I could develop the absolute best osseointegration texture and patent it. It still took 30 years for that industry to adopt 3D printing.

Fakiplations

Every year, applications have been growing at Formnext. Now, well-explained application parts litter stands. People talk less about the process, and more about how it is enabled by the tools they are selling. Application parts are used as examples of success and differences between machines, materials, or software. PA 11 is illustrated through parts that showcase its superiority over PA 12, while tastefully placed parts are winks to millions of parts being made of a certain shape. Now of course you can’t show the coolest and most interesting parts, because these belong to clients and are often secret. Often, therefore, interns make simulacra of applications, creating ersatz applications to enliven a stand or story. Some people go further and print rocket engines, hypersonic parts, or jet engine brackets, while no one in their right mind would make it with their machine, material, or software. Other people go further still and invent stuff that doesn’t actually work. So, applications are not only driving growth in additive manufacturing, but they are also the entire point of additive manufacturing. Meanwhile, a lot of people at Formnext still think that “fake it till you can make it” is a strategy. Because we can easily prototype shapes, this is an especially rewarding strategy for the avaricious.

Stands

In line with this trend, stands are much more like HP, Stratasys, and Trumpf: early leaders in well-documented, well-explained inspirational application content. Stratasys was the earliest company to do this and has consistently shown off inspirational parts for years. I always discover something new at the Stratasys stand. Due to this, the stands were generally more table-like, focused around plateaus of tables with parts. Machines were often on the outside as a perimeter or on islands. Everything was generally a bit more sober than a few years ago and more industrial and business-like. The busiest stands were Bambu, Prusa, Creality, and the like. Both Bambu and Prusa effectively put up a wall of printers and minimized internal stand volume, having a rabbit warren inside. This caused people to spill into the walkways and amplified the appearance of busyness. A lot of companies were gone. There were many powder and filament producers that I’ve never heard of. There were more platforms and region-specific stands that climbed to new heights.

Branding, marketing, and presentation had improved significantly. Especially Chinese firms such as Farsoon and BLT had really stepped up their game. Rather than a big stand with boxes, they had engaging, well-produced environments. One thing that could be improved is the lighting. It was still too difficult to take good cell phone pictures of parts. This is important because that cell phone picture is what I’ll show my boss when I get home. There are also too few QR codes that lead to new information. Links to relevant case studies, the website of the company using the part, or videos could really enrich the experience.

There are lots of baristas now, from fully automatic bumbling with coffee to people who can make good coffee, which is wonderful. Companies are less annoying about giving out coffee. Some people were giving away food more widely and focusing on better food options. I really think that there is more opportunity there, with lunch being difficult to get for many, involving long queues; a good sandwich or pizza slice would go far. The stand party thing has been much reduced. With more events on Monday, especially partner events, people are leaving the show itself earlier. Rather than boring presentations, more people focused on engaging demos, with the best one being Stratasys´ digital anatomy surgery demo.

There were fewer students, fewer tire kickers, and more industrial customers. Overall, the people I asked were very bullish about the lead quality that they got. But, visitor and stand numbers were definitely lower. For a lot of people, business is much better this year than last year, but the worry is about the economic outlook. In Germany, especially, there is a lot of economic uncertainty. There are sector-specific worries about the automotive supply chain as well.

All in all, we’re still a bit in revolution hangover mode. But, instead of being champions winning in every sector, application, and industry, we are growing businesses in particular parts. Some people are doing exceedingly well; some others, poorly. We will need to grow, steadily, sustainably, over time now. We are the champignons.