3D Printing: Rocking Manufacturing
Revolutionizing Product Design
Before 3D printing, products were designed so that they could be made with traditional manufacturing methods which was called ‘design for manufacturing’. 3D printing eliminates such limitations and enables manufacturing for design. This allows designers to create products that never existed before and to give existing products a radically different look and feel.
Lower all-in costs
3D printing also uses raw materials efficiently because it does not involve machining away most of the material to yield a finished part. Even where it costs more to 3D print a part, as compared to traditional methods, 3D printing may still be cheaper in the long run. For example, 3D printing a part might make it lighter. Where the weight of a part affects costs over the part’s lifetime, 3D printing may prove to be cost effective. For example, if a 3D printed aircraft part is 15 percent lighter than a traditionally made part, the aircraft fuel savings over the life of the part justifies paying more to 3D print it.
Customers Become Manufacturers
3D printers can be used not just by traditional manufacturers, but also by their customers. Consider a company that needs turbine blades used in power generation. The blades need to be replaced from time to time, at great expense. By using 3D printing to repair the blades, the customer no longer needs to buy new ones. This is great for the customer but terrible for the blade manufacturer. And the lines have blurred between manufacturer and customer because the customer has become the manufacturer.
Companies Must Adapt or Die
Suppose a customer, or the military, starts 3D printing its own spare parts, rather than buying them from the OEM. Some OEMs will adapt, or maybe they will start selling 3D printable digital blueprints rather than making parts. Other OEMs will not adapt, as Kodak failed to adapt to the digital imaging revolution.
Everything Will Happen
A world full of 3D printers that can make almost anything will probably be an almost inconceivably complex place, where products and blueprints are designed, customized, made, and sold by an uncountable number of companies and home printers offering a dizzying array of products.
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