In some applications the turnaround time either doesn't matter or can be overcome. (i.e. with FDM printing it's pretty trivial to use 2..N print heads to get a

In some applications the turnaround time either doesn't matter or can be overcome. (i.e. with FDM printing it's pretty trivial to use 2..N print heads to get an increase of 2..N in part production) Also, this happens with virtually every new technology. See AI, blockchain etc. In every company that a given technology potentially impacts/applies to, at some point there is an Executive asking 'what is our strategy for X?' which results in one or more projects related to X being spun up. Eventually most of these efforts will fizzle/fade but there will be a subset of use cases where there will be a (possibly surprising) benefit that offsets the slow speed / limited resolution / whatever that makes 3D printing worth using in real production environments. There are also some instances where 3D printing (whether FDM, SLA, SLS etc) can produce a better result than existing alternatives like injection molding. It's just another tool in the toolbox.