SiOCAST 2025:
The Year “Flexible” Went Industrial
If 2024 was a year of consolidation, 2025 was the year of the leap—from a technology proven in demanding markets to a clear industrial narrative, backed by a roadmap, partners, and measurable commercial traction. From our HQ at DFactory Barcelona, we’ve turned an ambitious idea—making part injection viable without depending on traditional metal tooling—into a structured project with validations and a growing ecosystem around it.
This article recaps the most relevant milestones of 2025 from three angles: innovation, visibility, and adoption—and, most importantly, what this year established as our foundation to scale.
1) Innovation:
From Promise to a Complete System (SiOCAST Phase 2)
In 2025, SiOCAST focused on industrializing the concept of flexible molding: expanding our silicone-mold injection know-how into a broader, more interoperable environment—designed for commercial plastic materials and new applications. This evolution builds on an integrated workflow: digital design, high-precision masters, SiOmold creation, and production/validation with a structured approach to process control.
Designed for real speed: from CAD to parts in days (not weeks)
The technical value proposition is not limited to “making molds.” It’s about shortening iteration and launch cycles, combining high surface fidelity and design flexibility with injection productivity for low- to mid-volume production (and use cases that can scale further).
Materials first: expanding what’s possible with SiOCAST silicone molds
One of SiOCAST’s biggest advances in 2025 was not only process development—it was materials engineering. We invested heavily in understanding how different material families behave in silicone tooling and in turning isolated trials into repeatable, application-ready performance.
Throughout 2025, we expanded our internal knowledge base and optimization methods across widely used families such as TPU, TPE, PA6, PP, and HIPS. The result: clearer material-selection criteria by application, stronger design/usage recommendations to get the most out of silicone molds, and a faster path from prototyping to short-run production.
Operational digitalization: the console as a shared language
In parallel, the console concept (recipes, cycles, alerts, maintenance, traceability) reinforces a key idea: it’s not enough to inject parts—processes must become manageable systems for operators, engineering, and quality teams. This is part of the industrialization package: reducing uncertainty, accelerating learning, and enabling scale.
2) Ecosystem:
Partners That Close the Loop (From Data to Results)
A consistent pattern appears in every serious industrial adoption conversation: “How do I validate? How do I measure? How do I iterate without losing time?” In 2025, SiOCAST worked to answer that need through alliances and tools that strengthen the overall workflow.
SiOCAST × SHINING 3D: from mold to data
Our collaboration with SHINING 3D formalizes a critical layer: 3D scanning and dimensional analysis to connect the physical and digital worlds, compare parts against nominal geometry, and prioritize iterations with objective criteria. In practice, this accelerates decision-making, reduces trial loops, and improves technical discussions with industrial customers who expect data—not impressions.
Sustainable materials and circularity: expanding the map of possibilities
In 2025 we also strengthened work with the sustainable materials ecosystem, opening the door to validate material families with a circularity-driven approach. In this context, partners such as Balena Science represent the type of collaboration aligned with more responsible manufacturing: materials designed for circularity with real ambition around end-of-life strategies.
3) DFactory + CZFB:
Innovation With Context (and Credibility)
Industrial innovation does not happen in a vacuum. It happens where there is infrastructure, talent, visibility, and collaboration. In 2025, the role of DFactory Barcelona and the CZFB ecosystem acted as a multiplier: a demonstration environment, a validation hub, and a meeting point for industry, institutions, and partners.
A particularly symbolic milestone was the visit of Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to DFactory during BNEW 2025, highlighting the hub’s role as a node for Industry 4.0 and a place where companies and startups converge. For SiOCAST, these moments are not “photo ops”—they are a signal of building where part of the industrial future is shaped.
Food-contact momentum: visibility that accelerates materials validation
At the start of 2025, our Food-Contact track helped connect visibility and impact with a very pragmatic objective: accelerating materials validation in real applications with high quality expectations.
A key milestone was our presence at Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW) 2024, hosted at DFactory Barcelona, where SiOCAST showcased a more agile approach to developing molds and enabling localized production. Within the program, the FoodTech: Transforming the Food Industry vertical offered an ideal context to discuss how technology is reshaping the food industry—opening conversations around customized molds for applications such as chocolate and pastry.
In parallel, SiOCAST was invited into education and design ecosystems that are actively redefining gastronomy and food design:
CETT Barcelona hosted a session where we showed how rapid mold development can support innovation in pastry and culinary applications, connecting industrial expertise with the next generation of creators.
We also participated in B(i)TES – Mapping Food Design through Phygital Food Systems, an exhibition organized by Elisava in Barcelona, curated alongside FORK, Food Design Lab Lisbon, and Foodscapes.
Beyond visibility, these events served as a materials learning accelerator. Food-contact applications demand high-quality surfaces, reliable demolding, and stability across repeated cycles—so every demo and technical conversation reinforced our 2025 focus: expanding compatibility with commercial plastic materials.
4) International Visibility:
2025 as a Year of Events With Outcomes (Not Just Presence)
SiOCAST did not pursue visibility for visibility’s sake. The objective was clear: turn events into pipeline—and pipeline into projects.
K 2025 (Düsseldorf): the global benchmark
K 2025 was, without exaggeration, the year’s biggest benchmark. SiOCAST exhibited in Düsseldorf (Hall 13, Stand B75). The most important outcome was not “general interest,” but the structure of that interest:
100+ contacts registered at K
A mix strongly weighted toward injector/service bureaus and end users, plus a meaningful block of injection-machine manufacturers exploring technical collaboration
“Adoption” accounted for the largest share of interest (42.4%), suggesting more mature conversations: less curiosity, more “what does it take to implement this?”
Phase 2’s timeline was also publicly framed in 2025: announcement in May, pilot program start in June, technology deployment in September, and a broader opening in 2026 with limited access during 2025.
A+A: focus, signals, and opportunities
At A+A, 50+ contacts were registered, with a clear reading: much of the market is looking for prototyping and short runs to accelerate launches—and a relevant subset wants to bring the technology in-house, pointing toward opportunities for structured demos and pilots.
Footwearise: focus, signals, and opportunities
In 2025, SiOCAST strengthened its positioning in the footwear industry through Footwearise, the flagship event organized by Footwearology to a more advanced supply chain: local-for-local production, on-demand manufacturing, personalization, waste reduction, and viable end-of-life strategies—with a strong emphasis on renewable and regenerative materials.
For SiOCAST, this context aligns naturally with our mission: accelerating the development and validation of parts in commercial plastic materials, lowering barriers to prototyping and short-run production, and opening new conversations around more sustainable material pathways with ecosystem partners.
Global AM Hubs Summit (Barcelona): positioning in agile industrialization
In September 2025, SiOCAST participated in the Global AM Hubs Summit at DFactory Barcelona, reinforcing a narrative that resonates strongly with the market: agile industrialization and a practical bridge between digital design and manufacturing.
5) What 2025 Leaves Us:
Operational Learnings (To Scale for Real)
2025 didn’t just add milestones—it defined priorities:
Adoption is won through structured validation: workflow, data, and deliverables (samples + report + industrialization plan).
The market wants speed, but demands control: consistent recipes, repeatability goals, and clear boundaries by geometry/material.
Metrology accelerates trust: the scan–analyze–iterate loop reduces commercial and technical friction.
The model strengthens with recurring value: solution + consumables + digital layer + services (validation, support, training) is what makes the system sustainable—for customers and for SiOCAST.
Closing: 2025 as the Foundation for the Next Leap
If we had to summarize 2025 in one sentence, it would be this: SiOCAST moved from “an interesting technology” to “an industrializable system.” With a structured Phase 2, measurable trade show outcomes, partnerships that close the digital-to-physical loop, and an ecosystem (DFactory/CZFB) that multiplies collaboration and visibility, we enter the next year with a clear advantage: we are not speculating about the future of flexible molding—we are building it, with industry, data, and real-world validation.
