Austal, Curtin University, and the Additive Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (AMCRC) have launched a $600,000 joint research project aimed at helping Australia’s maritime and defense sector determine where additive manufacturing (AM) actually makes sense to use.
The 18-month project will produce a structured framework for evaluating components against operational, commercial, technical, and regulatory criteria, moving the industry beyond one-off AM use cases toward a scalable methodology capable of assessing potentially thousands of parts.
From Proof of Concept to Structured Evaluation
For Austal, which serves as prime contractor for the US Navy‘s AM Centre of Excellence, the framework represents a shift in how AM decisions get made internally. Rather than identifying individual applications case by case, the company is looking for a repeatable process that can be applied across its programs.
Austal’s Head of Research and Development, Sam Abbott, framed the challenge as one of prioritization rather than capability: “The challenge is no longer whether AM works. The challenge is knowing where it delivers the greatest value. This framework will help us quantify the demand for AM across maritime and defense programs, allowing industry to make better investment decisions, build more resilient supply chains, and accelerate the uplift of Australia’s advanced manufacturing capabilities.”
Curtin University will lead framework development and validation, drawing on vessel and supply chain data to keep outputs grounded in commercial and operational realities. Research Lead Dr. Karl Davidson said the goal is to give manufacturers a faster, more structured path from opportunity identification to implementation, by combining engineering, operational, and commercial considerations into a single evaluation process.
Addressing Adoption Barriers
AMCRC Managing Director Simon Marriott pointed to a gap the project is directly targeting: organizations that understand AM’s potential but lack a structured way to determine where deploying it is justified.
“Many organizations understand the potential of AM, but struggle to determine where it makes commercial and operational sense. This project will deliver a practical solution that helps industry identify high-value opportunities, prioritize investment, and build confidence to scale adoption,” Marriott said.
The “Where” Problem in AM Adoption
The challenge has drawn responses from both the software and policy sides of the industry. 3YOURMIND developed a Use Case Screening tool specifically to address this barrier, designed to help enterprises identify parts suitable for AM and assess whether a business case exists for producing them additively, enabling informed decisions without requiring prior AM expertise from the evaluator. At the policy level, the US Department of Defense (DoD)’s first comprehensive AM strategy identified the same gap, committing to internal guidance that would enable 3D printing across the defense industrial base to the widest practical extent, including cost modeling and supply chain integration frameworks to support those decisions.
The Austal-Curtin-AMCRC project takes a research-led approach, building a methodology from real vessel and supply chain data that can be applied across Australian maritime and defense programs, with potential to extend to other manufacturing sectors facing the same problem.
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