BigRep and Large-Format Additive Manufacturing in European Defence Resilience
Assessing Industrial-Scale Polymer Production as a Sovereignty Enabler within EU and NATO Frameworks
BigRep operates in a segment of advanced manufacturing that is strategically relevant to European defence not because of technological novelty, but because of its potential to institutionalise large-format additive manufacturing as a distributed, sovereign production capability. In a policy environment where European defence readiness is increasingly defined by supply-chain resilience, industrial replenishment capacity, and the ability to sustain operations under disruption, the shift from physical inventories to governed digital inventories acquires structural importance. Large-format polymer systems capable of processing engineering-grade thermoplastics can, in principle, reduce exposure to fragile logistics routes by enabling time-critical production of tooling, fixtures, and selected structural components within European jurisdictions. The decisive analytical question is therefore whether BigRep’s hardware, materials ecosystem, and workflow architecture can be governed, standardised, and secured in a manner consistent with EU strategic-autonomy requirements and NATO’s emphasis on resilient, multi-domain sustainment.