Why 2026 Is the Year to Rethink DfAM for Production

Additive manufacturing has spent the last decade proving it can make production parts. 
2026 will be the year it proves it can do so reliably. 

The difference matters! 

Today, most barriers to AM production are no longer technological. Printers are capable. Materials are stable. Post-processing routes are established. Certification pathways (while demanding) are increasingly well defined. Yet many AM programmes still fail to scale, not because of manufacturing limits, but because of design decisions made far too early, and questioned far too late. 

This is where Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) must evolve. 

FROM PRINTABLE TO PRODUCIBLE 

Too much DfAM today is still framed around printability (support angles, overhangs, lattice density, weight reduction). These are necessary considerations, but they are not sufficient for production. 

Production demands geometry that understands: 

·       process behaviour, 

·       tolerance accumulation, 

·       post-processing realities, 

·       inspection constraints, 

·       and downstream cost sensitivity. 

A part that prints successfully but requires excessive finishing, or inconsistent performance is not a production success. It is a cost multiplier. 

By 2026, the industry will reward the teams who can bridge breakthrough geometry and production discipline, delivering repeatability, yield, and ROI without losing performance. That requires DfAM rooted in engineering intent, not just tool capability. 

WHY PRESET WORKFLOWS AREN’T ENOUGH 

DfAM rarely fails for lack of tools, it fails because teams start in the wrong place. Too many AM parts begin as imported CAD geometry shaped by machining or casting, then get “adapted” using preset lattices and generic optimisation buttons. The result might be printable, but it seldom exploits AM’s real advantage, and without that functional step-change, production ROI evaporates. 

The real work is asking better questions up front. What physics actually dominates? What must hit the performance target, and what must be robust to variation (strength, fatigue, thermal drift, changing loads, process scatter)? And which tolerances truly matter, versus those inherited from other manufacturing techniques? 

The cost of getting this wrong is substantial. Poorly framed DfAM leads to: 

·       extended development cycles, 

·       higher scrap rates, 

·       over-engineered parts, and 

·       production delays that erode the very business case AM was meant to support. 

What kills ROI and makes AM unfeasible commercially is the fact that the design doesn’t fully exploit AM 

2026 AS THE PIVOT POINT 

Why 2026? Because the industry is no longer forgiving. 

AM is now expected to deliver. Boards want numbers. Operations teams want predictability. Supply chains want confidence. For many sectors, AM has moved beyond ‘can we print it?’, the real question now is ‘can we repeat it, qualify it, and scale it?’ At the same time, in frontier areas like quantum and bioprocessing, experimentation remains the engine of progress. 

This creates a clear divide: 

·       Those who continue to rely on generic DfAM workflows and hope for the best. 

·       And those who treat DfAM as a strategic engineering discipline. 

The latter will win, not just in performance, but in time-to-market, cost control, and long-term scalability. 

MAKING EXPERTISE ACCESSIBLE: RAPID GEOMETRY REVIEW 

Historically, Metamorphic has applied its intent-driven DfAM approach to some of the most demanding challenges in  emerging technology sectors. That philosophy hasn’t changed. What has changed is access. 

With the introduction of our Rapid Geometry Review, the same engineering mindset is now available to production teams earlier in the process, before geometry is locked, before costs escalate, and before assumptions harden into risk. 

This isn’t about redesigning everything. It’s about identifying: 

·       where geometry is carrying unnecessary risk, 

·       where performance is being left on the table, 

·       and where small design changes can unlock disproportionate gains in manufacturability and ROI. 

NO MORE EXCUSES 

By 2026, using AM for production without intelligent DfAM will no longer be defensible. 

The tools exist. The knowledge exists. The only question is whether design intent is being applied deliberately, or delegated to presets and workflows never designed for you application. 

The companies that succeed in the next phase of AM will not be those who print more parts. They will be those who design better ones. 

And that starts with rethinking DfAM — now.