This year, MIT’s Enterprise Additive Manufacturing course coincides with RAPID + TCT, North America’s largest additive manufacturing and industrial 3D printing event, taking place April 13-17, 2026 in Boston, MA. The course will combine regular lecture and workshop programming with an integrated experience at RAPID, broadening exposure to key stakeholders in the AM industry and the latest technologies and applications. This 5-day program includes 3.5 full days at MIT, with two half-days split between MIT and the RAPID exposition floor. Please refer to the detailed schedule below.
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a broad category of process technologies that create components from digital data, without dedicated tooling. For advanced products, like jet engines and medical implants, AM is used hand-in-hand with conventional manufacturing to push the boundaries of performance and increase supply-chain flexibility. When integrated in design and manufacturing enterprises, AM accelerates product development and improves factory operations through uses in prototyping, shop floor aids, and end-use parts. Today, the frontiers of AM are defined by new materials, advanced automation and software, and the use of artificial intelligence for design optimization and production control.
Yet, despite these achievements and continued promise, AM has generally lagged in its adoption and, in many cases, fallen short of its expectations. The knowledge and skills that enable professionals and their organizations to identify, evaluate, and deploy innovative applications of AM are essential to greater and more effective adoption.
This course, Enterprise Additive Manufacturing, builds on a decade of experience at MIT teaching AM both in-person on campus and online to over 10,000 professionals.. The course employs lecture and discussion-based study to establish baseline knowledge and then transitions into an immersive team-based format where you will work alongside MIT and industry experts to put AM technologies to use in a simulated business setting. You will learn the foundations of AM and its applications across industries, and then build a vision–including an initial product design, an economic model, and a production strategy–for how to bring AM to life in your own industry or area of interest. We hope you arrive at MIT with an open mind, and leave the course with a clear idea of how to use AM and, more importantly, practical experience in doing so.
This year’s integration with the RAPID + TCT event in Boston brings an exciting new dimension to the course, connecting participants with the broader AM ecosystem through engagements that amplify MIT’s hands-on learning approach. You’ll develop your product vision in the course and then have the chance to qualify it with AM technology and service providers. More broadly, you will also gain valuable insights into how to navigate the global AM landscape by touring the RAPID show floor, and how to align emerging technologies with end-user needs. You will leave the course with a clear idea of how to use AM, how to engage with the AM industry and community, and, most importantly, practical experience in applying AM to your business goals and/or career interests.
This course may be taken individually or as part of the Professional Certificate Program in Innovation & Technology or the Professional Certificate Program in Design & Manufacturing. Though in-person instruction is limited to 3.5 days, due to the additional online preparatory component of this course, it is treated as a full 5 days towards certificate program completion.
The type of content you will learn in this course, whether it's a foundational understanding of the subject, the hottest trends and developments in the field, or suggested practical applications for industry.
How the course is taught, from traditional classroom lectures and riveting discussions to group projects to engaging and interactive simulations and exercises with your peers.
What level of expertise and familiarity the material in this course assumes you have. The greater the amount of introductory material taught in the course, the less you will need to be familiar with when you attend.