Parts are just a small part of it

A system-level approach is necessary for a company to make the out of additive manufacturing adoption. Sam Bucolo, a design veteran of 35 years, wants to add another layer to the “design for additive manufacturing” discussion.

When people talk about “design” and “additive manufacturing”, the conversation tends to settle quickly on material-saving geometry: lattice structures, lightweighting, part consolidation and generative design.

It’s a familiar script and according to Sam Bucolo, it’s also an incomplete one.

Bucolo, member of the Additive Manufacturing CRC’s Innovation Taskforce, has worked across industry and academia long enough to see multiple waves of new technology come and go. Additive manufacturing (AM), he argues, will only deliver meaningful economic impact if businesses stop thinking of it as a tool for making better parts – and start treating it as a catalyst for rethinking how value is created.

“Design helps in part optimisation,” he says. “But that actually undersells what [product] design can do in design for additive manufacturing, fundamentally. Because it’s all about, not what better parts you make, but actually what business models you do and how you create and capture value.”

Ealy promise, familiar patterns

Additive manufacturing’s first foothold in industry was prototyping – an application Bucolo know firsthand. As university student in the early 1990’s, he printed a stereolithography-made computer mouse, an early example of how quickly the technology could bring ideas into physical form.

Three decades on, the technology has matured, but the way many organisations approach it has not kept pace. In many cases, AM is still being used to replicate existing parts or processes, albeit with incremental improvements in speed or complexity.

That, Bucolo suggests, is where the opportunity begins to narrow.

Looking past the component

At a basic level, adopting AM might mean printing parts and selling them. But even within that model bigger questions emerge.

• How does a part get to a user?
• How does it get serviced?
• How is it optimised for its place within a supply chain?

These are not engineering questions alone – they are design questions in the broadest sense.

For Bucolo, design is not confined to the object itself. It is about reframing problems and focusing on how value is created and delivered. That perspective becomes critical when dealing with technologies like AM, which have the potential to reshape supply chains as much as they reshape products.

“We know technologies themselves won’t actually create the economic impact that Australia needs,” he says. “Additive manufacturing is a key part of that – but only if we think beyond the part.”

A different set of economics

One area where that broader thinking is already gaining traction is small – batch, high-value production, often cited as a natural fit for Australia manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing reduces the need for tooling, making low-volume production more viable. It also allows for greater complexity without a proportional increase in cost.

But again, Bucolo cautions against focusing too narrowly on production advantages.

“I think Australia can really capitalise on this,” he says. “But I think we have to move beyond just ‘we can get the part faster.’ We can change our business model of how we deliver value.”

That could mean shifting from selling products to offering services, or redesigning distribution so that manufacturing happens closer to the point of use. It could involve rethinking spare parts, maintenance, or even ownership itself.

Where to start

For many companies looking to adopt additive manufacturing, the instinct is often to begin at the component level: identify a part, redesign it for AM, and measure improvements.

Bucolo suggests stepping back.

Rather than starting with geometry, businesses should consider how they create, deliver and capture value, and where additive manufacturing might enable a different approach.

“Your starting point may not be, ‘let me now make this component faster by just stripping out.’ You can actually start completely differently, going, ‘okay, well, how do I create value with this part? What might it look like? Am I actually providing this as a service to somebody?” he says.

“There are very different service models that additive manufacturing allows a designer to start up front, not just taking a part and going, ‘Okay, I just want to optimise it for additive manufacturing.’

“That’s a very important part. But I think of where to start, the real opportunity is standing right back and going, ‘well, what’s the economic value of this? Not just the geometric value.’”

The bigger picture

Additive manufacturing continues to evolve, bringing new materials, faster machines and expanding applications. But as the technology advances, the question facing industry is becoming less about capability and more about perspective.

Part design will always matter. It is, as Bucolo acknowledges, an important piece of the puzzle.

But it is only one piece.

The real opportunity lies in connecting that piece to a wider system – linking products to services, production to distribution, and technology to business model to unlock new forms of value.