Parts that were formerly the sole province of subtractive methods can now in some cases be made more profitably via additive ones. With technological advances in additive manufacturing, however, and the dissemination of those advances into the business world, additive methods are moving ever further into the production end of manufacturing in creative and sometimes unexpected ways. For example, rapid prototyping was one of the earliest additive variants, and its mission was to reduce the lead time and cost of developing prototypes of new parts and devices, which was earlier only done with subtractive toolroom methods such as CNC milling and turning, and precision grinding, far more accurate than 3d printing with accuracy down to 0.00005" and creating better quality parts faster, but sometimes too expensive for low accuracy prototype parts. There are many applications for AM technologies, including architecture, construction (AEC), industrial design, automotive, aerospace, military, engineering, dental and medical industries, biotech (human tissue replacement), fashion, footwear, jewelry, eyewear, education, geographic information systems, food, and many other fields.Īdditive manufacturing's earliest applications have been on the toolroom end of the manufacturing spectrum. McKinsey predicts that additive manufacturing could have an economic impact of $550 billion annually by 2025. According to Wohlers Associates, a consultancy, the market for 3D printers and services was worth $2.2 billion worldwide in 2012, up 29% from 2011. Since the start of the 21st century there has been a large growth in the sales of AM machines, and their price has dropped substantially. Industrial production roles within the metalworking industries achieved significant scale for the first time in the early 2010s. Their expansion into production ( job production, mass production, and distributed manufacturing) has been under development in the decades since. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches.ĪM technologies found applications starting in the 1980s in product development, data visualization, rapid prototyping, and specialized manufacturing. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did (.) Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750-or the printing press in 1450, or the transistor in 1950-it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale.
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