The current remaining challenges for structural health monitoring (SHM) systems prevented the introduction of SHM systems on a large scale within industrial applications. An effective SHM system is required for the reduction of the direct operation costs, improvement of the life-safety and the introduction of additive manufactured components for critical structures. In this paper, a new structural health monitoring methodology will be presented for components that can be processed by additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing. The origin of the source concept will be explained together with the different possible configurations and the intrinsic strengths of the system. It will be concluded that these new AM production techniques and new SHM technique will allow the development of Òintelligentî metal structures in the future. The importance of the SHM system for the breakthrough of the AM techniques will be highlighted for critical components such as primary aeronautical structures.