Building resilience: Three insights from AM Village 2026

AM Village brings together defence organisations, industry and research institutes to explore how additive manufacturing can be applied in demanding operational environments. Compared with the previous edition in 2024, I saw both a broader range of participating organisations and a clear step forward in technological maturity.

Many of the challenges addressed at AM Village are also highly relevant beyond defence. Access to critical components, shorter lead times, local production and the ability to maintain operations when conventional supply chains are disrupted are increasingly important questions for many industries.

Three developments in particular stood out to me.

1. Distributed manufacturing is becoming a reality

One of the most prominent trends was the emergence of field-deployable production units and distributed manufacturing. Several demonstrations showed how manufacturing, post-processing and quality control can be integrated into compact, mobile solutions located close to the end user.

This creates opportunities to produce and repair critical components locally when access to conventional supply chains is limited. Instead of depending entirely on centralised production and transportation, manufacturing capacity can be moved closer to where and when it is needed.

The potential benefits are clear: shorter lead times, greater flexibility and more resilient supply chains.

2. From physical inventories to digital spare parts

Another important development is the growing role of digital spare parts. Additive manufacturing makes it possible to rethink the traditional model of maintaining large physical inventories by enabling selected components to be stored digitally and manufactured locally when required.

For defence applications, this can improve operational readiness and reduce dependency on long and vulnerable supply chains. But the same principle is relevant to civilian industry and critical infrastructure, particularly for obsolete components, low-volume spare parts or situations where conventional sourcing involves long lead times.

Moving from physical inventories towards qualified digital spare parts also raises important questions around data, quality assurance and repeatable production. These are areas that will become increasingly important as distributed manufacturing matures.

3. The focus is shifting from technology to implementation

Perhaps the clearest change compared with previous editions of AM Village was the shift from demonstrating what the technology can do towards showing how it can actually be implemented.

Among the solutions that attracted particular attention were field-deployable production units from Sweden, Norway and Spain. These demonstrated complete production chains in practice, including manufacturing, post-processing and quality control.

To me, this signals an important development. Additive manufacturing is increasingly being viewed not as a stand-alone technology, but as an integrated part of future production, maintenance and supply systems.

From technology to resilient production capability

What impressed me most at AM Village was not one individual technology or demonstration. It was the collaboration.

Bringing together defence organisations, industry and research institutes around real operational challenges creates an environment where technologies can be tested, requirements understood and solutions developed together.

For RISE, this reinforces the importance of supporting industry and the public sector throughout the entire journey, from early testing and proof-of-concept to industrialisation, distributed manufacturing and resilient supply chains.

Turning additive manufacturing into a robust production capability requires more than the ability to print a component. It requires the entire chain to work, from digital data and materials to manufacturing, post-processing, quality assurance and validation. And perhaps most importantly, it requires collaboration.

About AM Village 2026

AM Village 2026 was organised by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and held in Albacete, Spain, from 16–20 March 2026. The event brought together more than 800 participants from defence organisations, industry and research institutes to explore the role of additive manufacturing in defence, logistics and operational readiness.