There are now more than 830 listed locations worldwide where RP and RE services can be obtained, including commercial businesses, academic institutions and government agencies. There were about 640 in 2003.
There are now more than 525 independent commercial entities that provide rapid prototyping services. The number of independent commercial organizations in the US has grown by less than 6% since 2002, but foreign commercial organizations have increased in number by more than 30% over the period. Service providing locations outside the US represent 60% of the total, and that share of the market continues to increase.
The dominant technology provided by service bureaus is stereolithography. Nearly 58% of commercial organizations provide that technology, but that's down from 63% in 2003. Selective laser sintering has maintained its penetration at about 53% and is the second most prevalent technology. Commercial service providers outside the US are nearly twice as likely to provide selective laser sintering (SLS) as their US counterparts, and they are more than twice as likely to provide additional reverse engineering services.
The penetrations of other technologies remains low compared to the two dominant technologies, but significant changes are occurring. Laminated object manufacturing (LOM) and multi-jet modeling are falling out of favor, with LOM reduced to almost 50% of its 2003 penetration level. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) and three dimensional printing (3DP) have been increasing their penetrations marginally, but jetted photopolymer technologies are now available from nearly 7% of commercial providers.
About 49% of commercial companies provide only a single technology, but nearly 50% can provide 2 or more, and about 20% can provide 3 or more. These figures have remained essentially unchanged over the last 5 years.
Nearly 15% of commercial rapid prototyping service providers worldwide also provide reverse engineering services. Also included are organizations which provide reverse engineering services, but don't provide RP. There are approximately 35 such organizations, worldwide, including manufacturers that also provide services.
The Database is provided as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing:
Includes more than 830 active rapid prototyping and reverse engineering service bureau locations worldwide.
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