Question:
Discuss about the Economic Implications of 3D Printing.
In this new world of technology the 3D printing has travelled from theoretical to reality. They have turned cheaper in production and various models have been available for sale along with designing of products. Moreover they have been becoming common in the home.
The report demonstrates the 3D printing as the additive manufacturing. It analyses whether it has been suited better for the high or low volumes of production. The situations of its value are analyzed along with the forecasts on 3D printing. Lastly it answers the way in which 3D printing could make the conventional manufacturing outdated along with it effects.
3D printing is more appropriately called as an additive manufacturing as it is a process that can be applicable for creating 3D objects from digital files. 3D objects can only be created using additive processes that includes layering of successive layers of materials until the object is considered to be fully created. These successive layers can be seen as very thin slices of cross-section of the eventual objects (Weller, Kleer & Piller, 2015). It does not follows the subtracting manufacturing that includes hollowing out or cutting out materials from a complete piece of the plastic or metal substances through milling machine. ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) introduced Additive Manufacturing and led to the development of seven standards that could be helpful in classifying Additive Manufacturing processes into seven categories.
The above picture is a clear representation of workings of Vat Photo-Polymerization in which container is filled with photopolymer resin, after that it is being hardened through using UV light source (Campbell et al., 2011). There are three other processed involved in this process that could be corrective justification for representing it as an additive manufacturing that includes (CLIP) Continuous Liquid Interface Production, DLP (Digital Light Processing), and SLA (Stereolithography)
The basic working of this printer is similar to the inkjet paper printer in which material is being applied through a nozzle of small diameter, the only difference is that it is being applied layer-by-layer in manner to build a platform to make a 3D object and after that it is being hardened by the UV lights.
There are three technologies FDM, FFF, and Contour crafting that are involved in this section and this is also used to add materials and create the objects that can be represented as an evidence for its additive It involves materials into the sheets that are expected to be bounded with the external forces.
Mostly used in manufacturing applications and high-tech metal industries. It deposits metal powder on a surface and multi-axis robotic hand that is connected to the nozzles used to create the object (McMenamin et al., 2014).
There are basically two additive processes that are being used under this section for the creation of a 3D object that includes DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering), and SLS (Selective Laser Sintering).
Liquid binder and powder base material are being used within this model creation in which as shown in the figure in the chamber in which powder is spread equally and glue is used to strengthen the object.
The conventional processes like the injection molding have been utilized more for the wide scale manufacturing. It has been more costly for the low volumes. Hence it is best suited for the high volumes of productions. It has been reshaping the product manufacturing and development (Xing, Zheng & Duan, 2015). Through using the process of 3D printing, the engineers and designers are able to save money. As it saves time, it is regarded to be invaluable presenting the scopes to create the highly accurate model of how the new product has been looking.
For the low volume manufacturers, the most costly and the labor intensive portion of the product development has been the tooling production. The 3D printers are able to remove the expenses since it eradicates the necessity for tool production that has been cutting the labor and the lead times.
For high volumes there have been various benefits that are inherent to the process. This includes the capability of producing the custom parts with no cost of upfront virtually. Moreover it is capable to produce shapes that ate impossible and uneconomical (Grice et al. 2015).
The situation where the 3D printing is regarded as the most valuable depends on how the value is defined. The largest market for 3d printing currently in the consumer application has been the hearing aids. The ear hearing aids are created through 3D printing. Further, the customized hip implants have been a smaller application with the value of the market is high. This is because they expenses per item has been larger.
Moreover, the plastic implants and the titanium implants have been possessing potentially higher market. The other unrealized markets like the 3D printed cartilage have been about a decade way for being commercialized (Lee et al., 2016). However the osteoarthritis has been one of the leading reasons for disability in the world. The ability of 3D printing cartilage for combating the disease has been a huge market in the sector of medicine with numerous patients being helped every year.
The custom fit products have been an outstanding business project for those who have been searching for 3D printing. The benefits of it over the conventional manufacturing have been that it has been permitting every part to be fit in a customized way to the customers. It has been providing better comfort with utility than the generic counterpart.
The respondents have been weighing in where the 3D printing for the product development has been in the current place. The leading research and the investment firms have been forecasting whether they have been investing in the in-house capabilities, outsourcing and the reasons (Loo, Chua & Pumera, 2017). They have been also needing to occur for the 3D printing of the parts of the end-products for becoming the reality in large-scale. Lastly they have been determining what materials have been of highest interest.
As any organization has been the committed user for the 3D printing, the outcomes have been ensuring that the same path of the peers and facing various challenges for adoption. The usage of security printing to the manufacture of products has been coming out as the current competitive advantage (Ventola, 2014). However, the organizations have not been initiating the investment fast to become the considerable disadvantage.
First of all, it has been enabling the continuous digital thread. The using of the 3D printing of production has been transformative. It has been speeding up product design and speeding up the business (Radenkovic, Solouk & Seifalian, 2016). Moreover it has been offering the grater design freedom and the spur innovation. The designs developed for the traditional manufacturing has been constrained by the manufacturing process requiring the creating of the distinct components assembled to generate the outcome. The technologies has been producing the objects fast incredibly and making them much costly. It has been creating the monolithic and the dense objects devoid of discernable layering. It has been the widest scope of the materials of the production in the 3-D printing market.
Moreover, it giving rise to the manufacturing-as-the-service. Same as the software-as-the-service has spawned various other adjuncts, the advent of the MaaS or manufacturing-as-a-service as driven by the 3-D printing. The there is also the reduction of the waste and the development of the resource use (Moon et al., 2014). The additive manufacturing has been using the materials it has needed to create the products. The material remaining after the job gets finished, could be utilized as the subsequent jobs. Thus the 3-D printing has producing the zero waste theoretically.
Conclusion:
Based on the above report it can be concluded that the organizations need to identify how they could be best benefitted by the 3-D printing. They need to determine the products that are of low-volume and require altering them fast as the market dynamics alters. All these better fit for the operations of 3-D printing than the other additional products.
Regarding the recommendations the following points are reminded.
References:
Campbell, T., Williams, C., Ivanova, O., & Garrett, B. (2011). Could 3D printing change the world. Technologies, Potential, and Implications of Additive Manufacturing, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC.
Grice, N., Christian, C., Nota, A., & Greenfield, P. (2015). 3D Printing Technology: A Unique Way of Making Hubble Space Telescope Images Accessible to Non-Visual Learners. Journal of Blindness Innovation & Research, 5(1).
Ju, Y., Xie, H., Zheng, Z., Lu, J., Mao, L., Gao, F., & Peng, R. (2014). Visualization of the complex structure and stress field inside rock by means of 3D printing technology. Chinese science bulletin, 59(36), 5354-5365.
Lee, J. Y., Tan, W. S., An, J., Chua, C. K., Tang, C. Y., Fane, A. G., & Chong, T. H. (2016). The potential to enhance membrane module design with 3D printing technology. Journal of Membrane Science, 499, 480-490.
Lee, V. K., Kim, D. Y., Ngo, H., Lee, Y., Seo, L., Yoo, S. S., … & Dai, G. (2014). Creating perfused functional vascular channels using 3D bio-printing technology. Biomaterials, 35(28), 8092-8102.
Loo, A. H., Chua, C. K., & Pumera, M. (2017). DNA biosensing with 3D printing technology. Analyst, 142(2), 279-283.
McMenamin, P. G., Quayle, M. R., McHenry, C. R., & Adams, J. W. (2014). The production of anatomical teaching resources using three?dimensional (3D) printing technology. Anatomical sciences education, 7(6), 479-486.
Moon, S. K., Tan, Y. E., Hwang, J., & Yoon, Y. J. (2014). Application of 3D printing technology for designing light-weight unmanned aerial vehicle wing structures. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, 1(3), 223-228.
Radenkovic, D., Solouk, A., & Seifalian, A. (2016). Personalized development of human organs using 3D printing technology. Medical hypotheses, 87, 30-33.
VAT Photopolymerisation | Additive Manufacturing Research Group | Loughborough University. (2017). Lboro.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 October 2017, from https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/amrg/about/the7categoriesofadditivemanufacturing/vatphotopolymerisation/
Ventola, C. L. (2014). Medical applications for 3D printing: current and projected uses. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(10), 704.
Weller, C., Kleer, R., & Piller, F. T. (2015). Economic implications of 3D printing: Market structure models in light of additive manufacturing revisited. International Journal of Production Economics, 164, 43-56.
Xing, J. F., Zheng, M. L., & Duan, X. M. (2015). Two-photon polymerization microfabrication of hydrogels: an advanced 3D printing technology for tissue engineering and drug delivery. Chemical Society Reviews, 44(15), 5031-5039.
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