By Marleen Vogelaar, CEO, Shapeways

We don’t talk about this enough in additive manufacturing. Why materials matter more?

Everyone gets excited about machines. Faster printers, bigger build volumes, new technologies. That’s what gets shared, demoed, and marketed.

But in reality, that’s not what determines whether a part works in the real world.

The real limiter, or enabler, is the material.

And right now, material science is moving faster than most companies realize.

Every manufacturing leap starts with materials

If you look back, every big shift in manufacturing came from materials.

Steel made modern infrastructure possible. Silicon made computing accessible. Composites changed aerospace.

Additive manufacturing is going through the same shift.

We’re past the point of asking, “Can we print this?”

The real question now is: Can we print it in a material that actually performs under pressure, heat, chemicals, real-world use?

More and more, the answer is yes.

The problem is, a lot of companies are still thinking like the answer is no.

The old mindset is holding teams back

For years, additive had a reputation problem.

You could print impressive parts, but they weren’t always strong enough, consistent enough, or certifiable enough for production. So it got boxed in as a prototyping tool.

That mindset stuck.

Even now, many teams still treat additive as “nice for iteration, not serious for production.”

But that’s outdated.

What changed isn’t just the printers, it’s the materials.

Today’s polymers and composites are doing things that used to require injection molding or even metal. You can get strength, flexibility, chemical resistance, and thermal performance that actually holds up in production environments.

The gap between “printable” and “usable” is closing fast.

Most organizations just haven’t caught up yet.

Engineers need to change the question

This is where I see the biggest shift happening.

Most teams still ask: “Can we print this in something similar to the material we already use?”

The better question is: “What material actually delivers the performance we need, and what’s the smartest way to produce it?”

That sounds small, but it changes everything.

Because now you’re not forcing additive to behave like traditional manufacturing. You’re designing for what it does best.

That opens up things like:

  • Lighter parts without sacrificing strength
  • No tooling, so faster time to production
  • Local manufacturing instead of global supply chains
  • Designs that simply weren’t manufacturable before

That’s where the real advantage comes from.

What new materials are actually unlocking

At Shapeways, we don’t look at materials as a catalogue exercise. We look at them as: what new problems can we now solve?

A few examples:

  • Polypropylene via SAF™
    This is a widely used industrial material, now available in additive with real production quality. Great for parts that need flexibility, chemical resistance, or repeated movement.
  • Nylon 11 via SAF™
    Stronger, tougher, more impact-resistant. Ideal for parts that take a beating and need to survive it.
  • Somos® Watershed materials
    This is where it gets interesting. You can achieve high detail, smooth finishes, even optical clarity. That opens doors for things like fluidics, light guides, and medical applications.
  • PPA-CF and PPS-CF
    This is where people start rethinking metal. These carbon-fiber-reinforced materials handle high temperatures, resist chemicals, meet flame standards, and come in at roughly half the weight of aluminum.

These aren’t incremental upgrades.

They change what you can build, and where you can use it.

The supply chain angle is becoming real

There’s another shift happening at the same time.

Supply chains are under pressure. Everyone’s felt it.

Lead times, geopolitical risk, dependence on global suppliers, it’s all being questioned.

And suddenly, the idea of producing parts locally, without tooling, without long lead times, isn’t just nice to have. It’s strategic.

That only works if the materials can handle real-world performance.

Now they can.

That’s why additive is moving from “innovation project” to “serious production option” in industries like aerospace, defense, and medtech.

What this means in practice

If you’re building hardware today, this isn’t just a materials question. It’s a strategy question.

It means:

  • Stop defaulting to the materials you’ve always used
  • Start from performance, not familiarity
  • Treat additive as a production option, not just a prototype tool
  • Work with partners who understand both materials and manufacturing

Because the reality is simple:

The companies that rethink materials now are moving faster, simplifying supply chains, and building better products.

The others are still optimizing yesterday’s constraints.

The machines will keep improving. That’s a given. But materials are what actually expand what’s possible.

And right now, that’s where the real shift is happening.

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