Los Angeles: As the Indian 3D printing and additive manufacturing industry set to grow exponentially in the coming years, the global 3D experience major Dassault Systemes is set to invest more towards skilling young minds and nurture domestic start-ups via its incubator programme. If we look at the Indian 3D printing market and analyse the current trends, it is the young start-up community that is helping the market grow at 20 per cent annually — serving sectors including the local automotive industry, electronics, health care, aerospace and defence.

The most popular 3D printing technology used in India is Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). According to the market intelligence solutions firm 6Wresearch, India’s 3D printer prototyping and materials market is projected to reach over $62 million by 2022 with several start-ups entering into the niche segment.

“We are bullish on India when it comes to training and nurturing young start-ups working in the 3D-printing space. We are willing to invest more in the country’s 3D ecosystem with opening up more training centres and bringing the young start-up community under our wings,” Suchit Jain, Vice President (Strategy and Business Development), SOLIDWORKS, Dassault Systemes,said.

Indian mechanical engineering schools are among the highest adopters of SOLIDWORKS software — a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) computer programme. “We are the second-largest CAD player in India in terms of market share. Several mechanical engineering students in universities like IIT-Bombay and IIT-Madras are using SOLIDWORKS. Some universities even have SOLIDWORKS incubator programme,” Kishore Boyalakuntla, Senior Director, Product Portfolio Management and SOLIDWORKS, said.

“SOLIDWORKS is in India to help enterprises, universities. Indians are manufacturing a lot — in medical, aerospace, automotive, defence, electronics and consumer devices. For us, India is the fastest growing market and we wish to double our SOLIDWORKS business in the country in next three years,” Boyalakuntla said. Dassault Systemes has a full-fledged research and development centre in Pune which is contributing big in guiding the company which employs over 2,000 people in India.

It also has 30 resellers across the country who have training facilities in SOLIDWORKS. According to experts, the world, including India, will eventually see the 3D-printing technology enter the industrial manufacturing hubs and research labs where its true potential lies. “Ten years ago, the emerging markets like India and China were far behind in terms of 3D technology adoption. Now when I travel to India, things are different with players like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bengaluru-based National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) competing with Boeing and Airbus,” Sumanth Kumar, Vice President, Simulia, Dassault Systemes, said.

“The gap between the western and emerging 3D-printing and additive manufacturing markets is bridging up. We see a great potential in the Indian aerospace, defence and automotive industry in days to come,” Kumar added. According to the 6Wresearch report, in terms of materials, India has the highest demand for for Polyactic Acid (PLA) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) — two of the most standard plastic 3D printing materials.

“Although the Indian 3D printer market is at nascent stage, it holds tremendous potential for the manufacturers, local assemblers and distributors,” said the report titled “India 3D Printer Prototyping and Materials Market (2016-2022)”. Although the 3D printer prototyping service market is currently limited to applications related to education, medical, arts and architectural, the trend is rapidly shifting towards industrial and manufacturing application.

Not just 3D-printing and additive manufacturing, Dassault Systemes is equally willing to help the Indian start-ups who are working in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications to build smart cities. “Not just smart transportation and smart lighting, for India, IoT will have more usability in health care and education. With SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we are willing to help India build better IoT devices for smart cities,” Jain said.

The future is clear: the emerging 3D printing technologies will disrupt the traditional industrial manufacturing economies in India especially at a time when the government is formulating a plan to improve its manufacturing output from the current level of 16 per cent to 25 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).