In the aerospace industry, there are plenty of research dollars to be had and the slightest improvement in weight reduction to an aircraft part can reduce fuel costs significantly. Though there is less of an impetus for innovating as quickly in the field of heavy equipment manufacturing, companies like Caterpillar, John Deere and Volvo CE are beginning to adopt 3D printing for more than just design and prototyping purposes.

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In this article, we’ll try to understand at what stage of development the heavy equipment space is with regard to additive manufacturing (AM). It should be stated up front that it is highly likely that nearly all of these companies use 3D printing for prototyping and design purposes at the very least. Caterpillar is a good place to start, in that it is the leading manufacturer of heavy equipment by revenue, pulling in $54.722 billion in 2018. The Fortune 100 […]

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