One of the things we hear most often from new clients is that they weren't sure what to expect from working with an additive manufacturing business. Would they need to arrive with a finished CAD file? Would they be handed off to a machine and left to figure it out? How involved would the team actually be?

If you've heard the term "additive manufacturing" and assumed it was just a fancy way of saying 3D printing, you're not entirely wrong – but you're also missing most of the picture.

New Zealand punches well above its weight as an exporting nation. We've built global reputations in marine technology, agritech, medical devices and advanced manufacturing – remarkable achievements for a small country at the bottom of the world.

When NZ manufacturers start exploring additive manufacturing for the first time, one of the first questions they ask is: what's the material actually like? Can it perform in a real product environment? How does it compare to what I'm used to?