A futuristic technology for creating products
Three-dimensional (3D) printing is an important application in many aspects of manufacturing. Invented in the 1980s (which was not too long ago!), 3D printing has gradually expanded to take up important roles in various industries. For example, Boeing employs 3D printing technology to produce some of the “titanium parts” required for its 787 aircrafts. 3D printing also has the potential to decrease the complexity of the objects that it creates. For example, General Electric “created a helicopter engine with 16 parts instead of 900”. This demonstrates the potential for 3D printing to make production more efficient.
The actual process of 3D printing is that a 3D printer produces and aligns thin pieces of a desired material, usually “in the form of liquid or powdered plastic, metal, or cement”. Then, it will typically fuse all of these thin layers together.
A transformative method of manufacturing
According to this Investopedia article, currently “3D printing speeds are too slow to be used in mass production.” However, that is not to say that 3D technology already significantly improved manufacturing productivity in certain areas. 3D technology has been especially handy at “reducing the lead time in the development of prototypes.” For a manufacturing company, the lead time is essentially the elapsed time between the start and end of a production process. Although 3D technology is not as suitable for mass-production in our current age, making one product, the prototype, typically faces much less problems!
3D printing replaces many other production processes, like “drilling, welding, [and] injection molding.” All of these make the production of prototypes easier and cheaper. In addition, 3D printing technology is actively used in medical sciences. Some even anticipate that “in the future, organs and body parts may be created using 3D printing techniques”. 3D printing is extremely versatile, in which each object it creates has the potential to be unique. However, the precision in production is also maintained, determined by how the object was first designed on a computer software.
Conclusion
With 3D printing being employed in so many different fields, undoubtedly, its potential for future growth is immense! With designing softwares becoming increasingly advanced, the 3D printers themselves will also evolve to be more precise at creating objects. Perhaps, they will be able to produce more complex items as well! 3D printing is truly a fascinating technology.