The November/December edition of 3D ADEPT Mag is always a time to reflect on the past 12 months, summarizing key events, achievements, challenges, and lessons learned on the road. It’s a moment to assess progress, identify areas for improvement, and help the industry plan for the year ahead.

This year feels especially significant. With Formnext celebrating its 10th anniversary, our reflection began not just with the past year, but with the past decade.

Today, we see an industry at a crossroads, where businesses must continually verify whether their vision aligns with market realities. While every stakeholder plays a role in making additive manufacturing work, it is the community that deserves congratulations for turning its potential into reality across vertical industries.

This end-of-year edition sheds light on what this reality means for AM companies and users, how it differs across regions, and the work still ahead, whether in specific applications (as explored in the “Experts’ Advice”) or across key areas of the value chain, such as data management.

This edition reminds us that the story of additive manufacturing is far from over. We’ll be here to ensure that each milestone remains as exciting and meaningful as the last, through 3D ADEPT Media.

Season’s greetings.

Exclusive features

Dossier | Between vision and reality: The state of AM Business in 2025.

What happens when the numbers don’t match the narrative?

Interestingly, the distinction between “complicated” and “complex” feels like a key lesson the additive manufacturing market in 2025 has to teach us.

Insights | Technology trends that marked the additive manufacturing market in 2025

If technology now underpins operational resilience, competitive advantage, and regulatory compliance, then staying ahead of the latest advancements or trends becomes even more critical, especially in today’s manufacturing environments.

With no specific order or priority, 7 technology trends marked the year 2025.

Focus | Partner content | 3D Systems

What do 3D Systems’ 2025 developments tell us about 2026?

Reviewing 2025 often comes down to taking a critical look at the companies that have consistently kept the industry on its toes. One such company is 3D Systems.

Events

Formnext 2025: Fifty shades of the “cost conversation”

On this 10th anniversary of the show, the 38,282 specialists and executives (47% from outside Germany) who gathered in Frankfurt to explore the 804 exhibitors (61% from abroad) and the extended program signal one thing clearly: the story is far from over.

Events: 2026 Outlooks

2026 will provide an opportunity to further spotlight the vertical industries and niche technologies driving the adoption of additive manufacturing. As far as vertical industries are concerned, we’ll look beyond the usual frontrunners (Aerospace & Defense, Healthcare & Medical, and others) to shed light on sectors with untapped yet significant potential.

Across a diverse lineup of partner events worldwide, we will highlight the key trends emerging from Ceramitec 2026, the Industrial Valves Summit, and TCT Asia.

Digital transformation | Structuring data management in AM: Insights from BMW Group and NIST

A single build in additive manufacturing can generate hundreds of gigabytes, even terabytes, of melt pool data. And that’s just a fraction of what can be collected across the entire production chain: chamber conditions, powder batch histories, post-processing operations, and more. Over time, one thing has become clear: capturing and quantifying data is often the easy part. The real challenge lies in turning it into value. Insights from Melissa Jech, Responsible for Planning, Tools, and Data Analytics at BMW Group’s Additive Manufacturing Campus, and NIST researchers (Yan Lu, Milica Perisic, and Albert T. Jones) highlight expectations from the industry and approaches that could be explored to implement a data management strategy.

The Experts’ advice | Conformal cooling design for AM: The mistakes everyone makes

In this “experts’ advice” segment, Mark Hartnett, Senior Technologist – AM at Irish Manufacturing Research, Corrado Muner, Product Manager at Texer Design S.r.l., and Domen Tršar, Head of Additive Technologies at HTS, answer a single question:

“What is the most common mistake or misconception companies have when designing conformal cooling channels for additive manufacturing, and how would you advise they avoid it?”

Their responses make it clear that misconceptions in this area are far more diverse and more persistent than many would expect.

Opinion | Could additive manufacturing be the key to realistic machinery replicas at tradeshows?

With 3D printing moving beyond prototyping into product visualization and exhibition engineering, scale models have evolved from simple marketing tools into powerful instruments for communicating engineering complexity. They allow designers, engineers, and stakeholders to interact with a physical representation of machinery that conveys both form and function.

Guest column | Mission critical: The economic and strategic stakes of AM in defense

3D printing is critical for the Department of Defense (DoD); its role in advancing strategic priorities, addressing operational challenges, enhancing readiness, and fostering collaboration across the Joint Force, industry, and international partners cannot be understated. The article below sheds light on the current areas where it aligns with DoD priorities, the latest applications achieved with AM in the field, and where the collaboration between DoD, industry, and academia is headed.