70% of AM Professionals Say Post-Processing Cant Scale With Production — 2026 Survey Reveals

The Hidden Bottleneck in Additive Manufacturing

As additive manufacturing continues its transition from prototyping to full-scale production, the industry is confronting an often-overlooked challenge: post-processing. A newly released 2026 Additive Post-Processing Survey from PostProcess Technologies reveals that 70% of AM professionals doubt their current post-processing workflows can scale alongside their production ambitions.

Time and Labor: The Scaling Challenge

The survey, now in its fifth edition, gathered insights from additive professionals across aerospace, automotive, medical, defense, and general manufacturing. The findings paint a clear picture: post-processing is becoming a critical bottleneck.

Key challenges identified include:

• Consistency (54%) — Ensuring uniform finishing across parts
• Time (53%) — Labor-intensive processes eating into throughput
• Complex multi-technology workflows — Companies running multiple printing technologies face increasingly complex post-processing landscapes

Safety and Sustainability Rising Priorities

Beyond productivity, the survey highlights growing awareness around environmental and safety aspects. Traditional post-processing often relies on manual handling of solvents, resins, and fine powders. As production volumes increase, manufacturers are paying closer attention to:

• Chemical handling and operator safety
• Waste management and environmental compliance
• Facility cleanliness standards

These concerns are particularly relevant in aerospace, medical, and dental industries with strict regulatory requirements, but are increasingly part of the conversation across the broader AM ecosystem.

The Maturity Shift

Another notable trend: many respondents report several years of AM experience, offering knowledgeable perspectives on bottlenecks across the complete additive workflow. With this maturity comes a broader view — companies are increasingly evaluating the entire workflow from design to print to post-processing.

Post-processing is emerging as a key factor that can determine whether additive manufacturing programs meet their performance, cost, and production goals.

What This Means for the Industry

The findings suggest that as AM moves further into production environments, addressing post-processing bottlenecks will be essential. Automated solutions, improved workflows, and standardized processes may be the key to unlocking true scaling for additive manufacturing.

The full 2026 Additive Post-Processing Survey Trends Report is available from PostProcess Technologies.