by Pavan Muzumdar, CEO, Project DIAMOnD
Let me be direct about a roadblock that I believe the additive manufacturing industry rarely admits publicly: today’s 3D printers are pretty good, but pretty good is not good enough – at least not if the goal is to achieve high volume, high-quality production.
That distinction between pretty good and good enough matters a great deal. Today’s 3D printers are good enough to make toys that look the same to the human eye. They are also good enough for advanced companies like Pratt & Whitney and BMW to make individualized parts and products that are used in customized manufacturing with painstakingly configured equipment. But they are not good enough for any manufacturer to make any part at scale.
Clearly, the narrative that additive manufacturing is still waiting for its moment to evolve beyond a prototyping or specialized technology is increasingly outdated. But the industry’s impressive progress over the past 10-15 years conceals the problems that remain.
Even with today’s advanced technology, outside of highly tuned sophisticated equipment, the same 3D printer, running the same file, struggles to produce functionally equivalent parts from one print to the next. Two machines of the same make and model may not produce interchangeable parts. In a world that requires precision components for aerospace, defense and medical applications, “pretty good” is simply not a viable standard.
How did we end up here? It is the predictable outcome of a vicious cycle.
When 3D printers first came to market, repeatability was expensive and technically difficult. The applications that gained traction such as rapid prototyping and short-run production didn’t require each version to be an exact replica, so manufacturers had little incentive to invest in that capability. As the prototyping market developed, the incentive to build for scale remained mostly dormant and held back development.
Today, some printer manufacturers are building their own repeatability capabilities. This is resulting in a proliferation of proprietary, siloed methods which will lead to a fragmented marketplace where incompatibility continues to persist.
In 2025, global additive manufacturing revenue was more than $24.2 billion and it has nearly quintupled over the past 10 years, according to the Wohlers Report 2026. However, last year’s 11% growth rate was well below the 20% or higher growth rates seen prior to the pandemic.
From design to print execution, AI and cloud systems are transforming 3D printing from an expert tool into an accessible production technology. But workflow integration, quality certification and standardization across the supply chain remain significant hurdles.
That’s what we want to help solve at Project DIAMOnD and Automation Alley. We’re working on a framework called Smart Product Recipe (SPR). Think of it as everything required to produce a specific 3D-printed item repeatably with enough data and specifications that the printer can produce products that comply with rigorous standards.
What makes this possible is that sensing technologies and computing power cost a fraction of what they used to just a few years ago. The SPR Framework is designed to methodically leverage this with open access and create a pathway that mitigates the risk of printer manufacturers and 3D printing practitioners alike. To be clear, we’re not creating a standard. We’re developing a framework that accommodates multiple standards encompassing multiple processes, multiple materials and multiple manufacturers.
The SPR framework has the potential to fundamentally shift the economics of manufacturing. Right now, if you have a design you want to additively produce at scale, you need to follow a rigorous qualification process. With SPR-compliant distributed manufacturing, the design and the production specification live together. Any compliant printer in the network can execute the SPR with each print authorized and tracked.
It helps manufacturing scale like software and lowers barriers to entry dramatically for smaller manufacturers who can’t afford massive capital expenditures in proprietary equipment. This is the rising tide that lifts all boats.
This is the time for the industry to move in lockstep – before everyone decides to run in their own direction. We need printer manufacturers to join us and incorporate SPRs into their product roadmap. The additive manufacturing industry has believed many times that its moment was coming. What’s different now is that the technology exists to break the vicious cycle. The question is whether the industry has the will to do it.
Pavan Muzumdar is the COO of Automation Alley, Michigan’s digital transformation insight center, and the CEO of Project DIAMOnD, the nation’s largest distributed 3D printing network. To learn more about the SPR movement, email contact@projectdiamond.org.