Countries in Southeast Asia are starting to embrace 3D printing as it moves from niche technology to one with real business applications.

In the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan region, shipments for 3D printers are expected to grow 37.1% a year from just over 195,000 units in 2014 to nearly 946,000 units in 2019, according to IDC research.

Pete Basiliere, research vice-president at Gartner, said organisations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region were slower to adopt 3D printing technologies because it was first invented in the US some 30 years ago before migrating to western Europe. But things have since accelerated. “The adoption of 3D printing has accelerated from that small base,” he said.

Growth in Asia-Pacific is driven by the need to reduce manufacturing cycle times and prototyping cost, said Lim Mun Chun, market analyst at IDC Malaysia. Other drivers include the education sector with supportive government policies in countries like Singapore, as well as by verticals such as aerospace, manufacturing and healthcare.

The manufacturing industry remains a key user of 3D-printed products, where the technology has shortened the design and manufacturing cycle by allowing prototypes for parts to be built in a matter of days. This has dramatically reduced costs and created opportunities for smaller manufacturers to be competitive.

3D printing has also revolutionised traditional supply chains, enabling companies to reduce expensive and wasteful physical inventories. Parts can now be digitally stored and manufactured on demand, allowing manufacturers to shift from having a physical to virtual inventory. This helps to reduce manufacturing cycle times, as well as warehousing costs, as parts are produced only when and closer to where they are needed.

“Manufacturers see 3D printing as a tool for on-demand manufacturing, giving them speed and flexibility in the marketplace and the ability to cater for unpredictable demand,” said Lim.

“Manufacturers see 3D printing as a tool for on-demand manufacturing, giving them speed and flexibility in the marketplace and the ability to cater for unpredictable demand” Lim Mun Chun, IDC Malaysia

Taking a big step towards enabling manufacturers to have a virtual inventory in the region are two 3D printing service providers in Singapore, the UCT Additive Manufacturing Centre and a 3D printing factory set up by Fast Radius.

Staffed by a team of 16, UCT’s facility in Singapore is its Southeast Asia base and has produced more than 10,000 parts since it opened in 2015. It offers prototyping, part optimisation, 3D engineering services, consumer parts production and virtual warehousing.

The entry of another large-scale 3D printing service provider such as Fast Radius points to a market that is maturing and growing, said Lavi Lev, senior vice-president, Asia division at UCT.

“It opens the door to individuals and small companies to manufacture parts with no capital equipment investment, and allows large corporations to speed up research and development through rapid prototyping,” he said.

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The Fast Radius facility is located at a UPS site in Singapore. The company’s Fast Radius on-demand production platform is used to produce industrial parts, which will be delivered to manufacturers in key Asian cities within 24 hours via UPS’s transport network.

“3D printing is disrupting manufacturing supply chains in Asia, and UPS’s on-demand manufacturing network enables customers to benefit from a distributed supply chain model,” said Rick Smith, co-founder and CEO of Fast Radius.

“We believe this facility can plug the gap between testing and taking products to market.”

The service provider is eyeing manufacturers that want rapid small-batch manufacturing, those that want to make slow-moving or out-of-production parts, as well as manufacturers with small to medium batch runs of five to 5,000 pieces.