3D Printing is the Next Big Disrupter for Manufacturing

If you ever thought Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco would look perfect in your living room, or you ever fancied a Rembrandt adorning the walls of your home, there may soon be a way for you to have any priceless masterpiece decorating your home without having to dig into your Swiss bank account. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a technology referred to as deep art learning, that can reproduce a masterpiece painting through the help of 3D printing and artificial intelligence.

3D printing has opened possibilities in many other fields as well. Open Bionics, a UK-based company, is developing affordable prosthetic arm devices for amputees that are straight out of science fiction. Using 3D technology and some ingenious engineering, the company has introduced the Hero Arm, which is turning disabilities into superpowers.

Open Bionics founder Samantha Payne says, Seeing a young child who is able to move his bionic fingers for the first time is really cool.

In an effort to accelerate the production of ship components, The Port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, located in the Netherlands, began focusing on more modern technologies, such as 3D metal printing, back in 2016, when it opened RAMLAB (Rotterdam Additive Manufacturing Lab) with 16 other participants.

RAMLAB utilizes cognitive IoT technology in the three dimensional printing process, which 3D prints on-demand, high-quality metal ship components using a robotic welding arm, like propellers, at a much faster rate. While conventional manufacturing processes can make a marine component in six to eight weeks, RAMLAB’s 3D printing method could potentially make the same component in only 8 days.

3D printers are helping world famous motorcycle manufacturer, Harley Davidson, develop better products for form and fit testing. By utilizing this cutting-edge technology, Harley Davidson is able to design and test better products and get them to market faster.

By investing in and utilizing 3D technology, aerospace manufacturer, Boeing, is reducing the cost and time needed to design, build and deliver products. The company currently has more than 60,000 three dimensional-printed parts flying in space, commercial and defense products.

By investing in companies with emerging additive manufacturing technologies, we aim to strengthen Boeing’s expertise and help accelerate the design and manufacture of 3D-printed parts to transform production systems and products, said Brian Schettler, managing director of Boeing HorizonX Ventures.

Ford Motors was an early adopter and in 1986 invested in the third stereolithography printer (first generation 3D printer). They quickly realized that although it couldn’t build a whole truck, the benefit of three dimensional printing was evident for prototyping designs faster and more efficiently. Today, Ford is using rapid manufacturing processes, which incorporates 3D printing, to help improve the way engineers build cars. For most of the company’s existence, engineers spent up to six months creating prototype engines which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. With 3D-printing these prototypes are created within a matter of days and for only a few thousand dollars. Taking advantage of this enormous reduction in time and cost, Ford recently decided to make not just a single engine prototype for a new vehicle, but multiple versions to be tested simultaneously. No longer bound by the constraints of the old industrial process, engineers now explore dozens of variations and rigorously test them all, fine-tuning the engine for desired performance.

3D printing in manufacturing is no longer the imaginary, but the inevitable. The ubiquity of the technology and the dramatic drop in affordability, even for the smallest job shops, the onboarding of this technology is inescapable. 3D printing to production will soon be as digital imagery is to photography. Instead of waiting with undying anticipation, we can view the results of the labor almost immediately.

At The Lake Companies, innovation drives us both inside and outside our industry. It stretches our minds and fuels our passion for creativity in our solutions (or to go beyond).