distributed manufacturing
GKN Will be Pivotal to A NATO-Wide AM Buildup
Last week I wrote about how a return to less strained relations between the US and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and a related resumption of…
AM & National Competitive Advantage, Part Two: Digitalization and the Changing Nature of Industrial Clusters
In part one of this series, I discussed the declining productivity growth rate in US manufacturing through the lens of Michael Porter’s 1990 text The Competitive Advantage of Nations, and…
Russia’s 3D Printed Missiles & Can NATO Get Its Act Together?
For most of US history, however much the two major parties differed on domestic policy (in some cases a lot, overall less than you’d think), there was always essentially a…
The Pentagon’s AM Buildup Has Shifted from Technology to Logistics
It would be very difficult for me to guess how many times I’ve written a post that includes some reference to how the Pentagon‘s scaling challenge with additive manufacturing (AM)…
Austrian 3D Printed Drone Startup DropForce is Selling Distributed Production
Investors couldn’t stop throwing money at the drone market in 2025, with total investments in the industry setting a record, coming in at just under $4 billion. If anything, though,…
PharmaTher Plans U.S. Network to 3D Print Medicines on Demand
3D printing medicines has often been tied to the idea of personalization, basically making a pill in the right dose, shape, or drug combination for a patient. PharmaTher is now…
GKN Aerospace’s UAV Demonstrator with 3D Printed Engine Avoids ITAR Regulations
The US CIA director recently made an unannounced visit to Moscow that has naturally raised much speculation, while the EU and NATO have now officially accused Russia of being behind…
Lyten’s Graphene Filaments Power Modovolo’s US-Made 3D Printing Platform
Drone manufacturer Modovolo has selected Lyten as the primary filament supplier for its industrial 3D printing platform, a move the companies say will strengthen U.S.-based manufacturing for aerospace, defense, and…
Inside Decibel’s Collaboration with SKYLRK at Coachella 2026
There’s a version of Coachella most people never see. Not the stage. Not the crowd. Not even the music. It’s everything built around it: the spaces where artists host, brands…
Forty-Five Years After Alvin Toffler Coined “Prosumer,” Could AI and 3D Printing Make It a Reality?
Every major technology wave comes with big predictions about how it will change the world. Today, many of those predictions center on artificial intelligence (AI). Futurists like Ray Kurzweil and…
3YOURMIND Demonstrates that Distributed 3D Printing is Ready at AM Village 2026
Given that additive manufacturing (AM) is so closely adhering to the classic industrialization blueprint whereby military adoption pushes a new technology to commercialization, I’ve thought for a long time that…
From Vision to Reality: Secure Additive Manufacturing for Brazil’s Energy Sector
In the oil and gas industry, every day of unplanned downtime can translate into significant operational and financial losses. When a critical component is unavailable, operators may wait days or…
3YOURMIND Partners with Phillips Corp. in US Navy’s RIMPAC Distributed Manufacturing Experiment
I recently wrote about the US Navy’s development of the Advanced Integrated Mobile Machine Shop (AIMMS), a containerized unit built around the Phillips Additive Hybrid system, which combines DED and…
Inside Haddy: Jay Rogers Wants 3D Printing to Build Real Products, Not Just Prototypes
A warehouse from the outside, but step inside Haddy and it shifts quickly: finished pieces up front, clean and minimal, furniture you can touch and sit on. Walking through the…
3D Printing & the Autonomous Era: Defense Tech’s Latest Mutation
When we last checked in on the broad defense tech landscape and the role of the additive manufacturing (AM) industry in that environment, it became clear that the connecting thread…
AM Drilldown: the Beginning of 3D Printing’s Next Phase in the Energy Sector
For much of the last decade, many have pushed an unjustifiably optimistic view of global energy consumption, along the lines of, fossil fuels are “on their way out.” Sadly, this…
Mikhail Gladkikh on Digital Inventory: “Think of It as Netflix for Manufacturing”
As manufacturers continue looking for ways to reduce supply chain risk, additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly being discussed as more than just a production tool. Across aerospace, energy, defense, and…
3D Printing & Drone Dominance: Speed, Performance, and Derisking the Supply Chain
A shift is underway in drone manufacturing. Government programs like the U.S. Department of War’s Drone Dominance, a $1.1 billion effort to deliver low-cost, one-way attack (OWA) sUAS at scale,…
ARC & ORNL Form Partnership to Accelerate AI-Enabled Manufacturing for Defense
Last year, Autonomous Resource Corporation (ARC) became the surprising owner of Desktop Metal’s (DM’s) assets following the bankruptcy of the one-time additive manufacturing (AM) unicorn, an acquisition that cost ARC…
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Installs 3D Printed Part on In-Service Submarine in Key Milestone for US Defense Sector
I’ve been tracking the US Navy’s additive manufacturing (AM) buildup as it relates to submarines for a while now, and even amidst the AM efforts that all the branches have embarked…
Please Localize Your Supply Chains
Resilience is starting to feel like the only economic metric that matters, which is noteworthy, for one, because there is no defined metric that I know of that actually measures…
3D Printing Predictions 2026: The Material Extrusion Market in 2026
The material extrusion market has seen titanic shifts over the past few years. A new bevvy of low-cost 3D printers have turned to software and sensors to make reliable high-speed…
DEFEND3D Founder Barrett Veldsman Explains Why AM is On the Brink of Its Cybersecurity Moment
Cybersecurity has been something of a blind spot for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry. In the second half of this year, this started to change: in September, leading prosumer brand…
Available on Kickstarter: Split3r Lets You 3D Print Big Parts on Small 3D Printers
French 3D printing company Qualup has been in the industry since 2011. The company has a good reputation in making high-temperature Material Extrusion systems and volumetric sensors for more precise…
