$64 Million of Government Funding for Additive Manufacturing
Since 1987 when the first $40K contract for additive manufacturing (AM) technology development was written, until the end of 2015, over $64M has been awarded to 99 companies in a total of 208 contract actions through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs.
The information presented here has been filtered to show contracts geared specifically towards the development of one or more aspects of AM. The list of contract awards is significantly larger where AM is referenced as a tool in the proposed solution, as well as those in which developed technologies could be applied to AM, but where it was not specifically cited as a use case. These scenarios were excluded from the dataset to provide greater clarity on targeted investments in AM focused R&D.
As you can see from the graph above, Government spending on AM technology advancement reached an all-time high of over $13.7M in allocated funds for 2015. These award topics span every aspect of the technology from material development and qualification to new production methods and process monitoring.
While this is just a proverbial drop in the bucket when viewed in the relation to the overall defense budget, the SBIR/STTR programs are just two of several possible avenues for government investment. When looking at the trend, one thing is clear — developing AM technology is becoming more of a priority for government agencies as they search for new ways to stretch their ever constrained maintenance and repair budgets. Identifying this trend is the first step to capitalizing on it.
While this graphic depicts overall investment, it’s important to drill down on which agencies are making the awards. How would you approach doing business with the government if you knew where the largest investments in AM technology were coming from?
In the following posts, I will share the lessons learned from exploring this data and provide a more comprehensive picture of the government's investment in AM technology to include: government-wide and individual agency investment trends, business development opportunities, as well as potential competitors, partners or acquisition targets in the industry.
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