When most people think about 3D printing in automotive, they picture an R&D lab: engineers in a separate building, prototyping concept parts months before production. At General Motors, North America, the reality looks nothing like that.
Across GM's global assembly network, Stratasys FDM printers live on the shop floor. Not in a lab. Right next to the line, where the people who build vehicles every day can turn a problem into a printed solution before the next shift starts.
"Additive manufacturing gives us the opportunity to give our shop floor team members across every site the tools to lean in, to ideate, prototype, and validate a solution," says Doneen McDowell, Manufacturing Vice President Full Size Trucks and Large SUV Assembly Operations. "If we can give people the tools so they can own the outcome within their footprint, and then we take those solutions and rip them across our footprint where they apply, we'll get the best outcome."
That philosophy has turned GM's workforce into what leadership describes as 50,000 problem solvers. The Stratasys F900 is the platform that makes it possible.
The shift didn't happen overnight, but the cultural change is unmistakable. Additive manufacturing at GM is no longer a novelty or a side experiment. It's simply how work gets done.
"When I go to a plant to review a launch, additive is just what we do," the Ryan Odegaard, Director of Paint Manufacturing Engineering says. "It's not something special anymore."
That normalization is deliberate. GM didn't just install printers. They built a system where frontline team members identify problems, design solutions, and print functional tools in production-grade FDM thermoplastics without waiting for external vendors or engineering approvals that take weeks.
At Factory Zero, GM's all-electric vehicle plant producing the Hummer EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ, general assembly maintenance shift leader Alex Jaraki describes the moment Stratasys FDM proved its value in a way everyone could feel.
"We had a line-down situation where we needed a special bracket made to hold a switch on a robot end effector," Jaraki recalls. "Traditional lead time would have been weeks out, but through additive manufacturing, we were able to have that bracket made in four hours."
Four hours. Not four weeks. That kind of speed doesn't just save money. It changes how people think about what's possible when a problem shows up at 6 a.m. on a Monday.
Unlike consumer-grade 3D printing, Stratasys FDM builds with real engineering thermoplastics: materials like ASA, ABS-M30, Nylon 12, and polycarbonate that deliver the mechanical properties, dimensional stability, and durability production environments demand. Explore FDM materials for manufacturing →
The applications span the full range of what a modern assembly plant demands. Moses Harris, an additive manufacturing applications engineer who directly supports five GM plants, describes the scope: part-holding fixtures, assembly fixtures, quality-checking jigs and aids, and mutilation protection devices that keep painted surfaces safe during assembly.
At Factory Zero, additive manufacturing lead Hanan Alattar’s team printed hundreds of ASA covers in a single day to plug holes on roller bed diamond plates, a safety issue identified in the morning and solved by afternoon. ASA was the material of choice because of its UV stability, mechanical strength, and smooth surface finish. Those properties matter when a part needs to perform in a production environment, not just look good on a shelf.
At Fort Wayne Assembly, where Chevy Silverados and GMC Sierras roll off the line, the team prints ergonomic tools used hundreds of times per day, including a custom palm tool that reduces hand fatigue when installing center caps on wheels. At Lansing Delta Township, the additive manufacturing lead Kevin Powell describes printing prototype parts before suppliers even have the design files.
"They can send me a file. The suppliers don't even have the files yet," he says. "I can print the part and test-fit it. We would have to wait months. Now we can 3D print the actual part, take it to a vehicle, test the fit, and send it to the supplier to make the change. We can get it done in a week."
The Stratasys F900 is GM's standardized FDM platform across its assembly network. GM chose it for its 36×24×36-inch build volume, high-performance material compatibility, and proven reliability in production environments running multiple shifts.
One detail that stands out in conversation after conversation: the team members who use these tools every day genuinely prefer them. At Fort Wayne, motor line relief operator Kurt Glasner talks about a the engine cord 3D-printed tool used 60 to 90 times per shift on the engine line.
"It's lightweight, it's ergonomic, it's easy to use," Glasner says, comparing it to the welded metal tool it replaced. "The old one was heavier. It's not as ergonomic as the new 3D printed tools are."
That preference matters. When operators choose the printed tool over the traditional one, adoption isn't a mandate. It's a natural outcome of better design made possible by the freedom FDM thermoplastics give designers to optimize for the human hand, not the limitations of machining.
GM's approach flips the typical additive manufacturing adoption story on its head. Instead of top-down deployment driven by engineering, they've built a bottom-up innovation culture where the people closest to the work are empowered to solve their own problems. Stratasys FDM is the manufacturing platform that makes the speed, reliability, and material performance possible.
