My Top 4 Takeaways at RAPID + TCT
My Ricoh colleagues and I recently attended RAPID + TCT 2024 — North America’s largest additive manufacturing and industrial 3D printing event at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
This exciting three-day event featured the latest in additive manufacturing from leading product and service providers and allowed attendees to explore advancements from over 400 exhibitors.
It was inspiring to connect, converse, and collaborate with the best and the brightest in additive manufacturing. I must admit, every time I return home from a trade show, it reminds me how fantastic it is to be part of this innovative industry.
Here are some takeaways from this year’s show and some highlights from what we discussed at our booth.
1.?????? 3D printing technology is transforming traditional manufacturing — Additive manufacturing (AM) is redefining how products are designed, developed, and produced. From healthcare to aerospace, AM is revolutionizing traditional production processes making a significant impact across various sectors. At Ricoh we see the transformation highlighted in several areas:
Between the many keynotes and exhibits, industry luminaries tackled pressing questions related to additive manufacturing providing valuable insights and perspectives on the future of 3D printing offering a comprehensive view of the industry.
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2.?????? Additive manufacturing is a significant investment — 3D printing offers numerous advantages but comes with significant price tag, such as: machine and tooling costs, extensive manual and skilled labor, material characterization/testing/tracking, as well as post-processing and finishing the printed part. AM is a highly specialized competency, from purchasing the right equipment to assembling a dedicated, knowledgeable team that can operate and maintain it. Ricoh’s?All-In 3D Print?helps our customers by eliminating the upfront costs and streamlining the process. The benefits that rapid prototyping brings to a product journey “from concept to completion” make it worthwhile.?
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3.?????? Optimize efficiencies by bringing 3D printing on-site — Outsourcing prototype models can be costly and add weeks and months to the process. In a highly competitive marketplace, speed-to-market time can be the difference between being first to market or last. Check out how we’re helping a technology equipment leader reduce over 85% of time and expenses with on-site 3D printing for rapid prototyping.
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4.?????? Additive Manufacturing requires an owner — To really reap the benefits of an in-house 3D printing program, someone needs to own it. This has to do with the arcane knowledge base of keeping 3D Printers operating at peak efficiency, designing an efficient 3D workflow for requesting prints, managing production processes and parameters, understanding and troubleshooting why builds fail, providing design feedback for additive manufacturability, quality management and inspection, as well as the lesser explored burdens of post-processing and finishing parts by hand. It's a very crowded OEM landscape in additive manufacturing and it's not always straightforward to understand how engineering requirements correlate to material and machine choices. Too often, manufacturers invest in additive manufacturing equipment only to see low ROI because engineers continue to send job requests to third-party service bureaus. Ricoh’s?All-In 3D Print?enables engineers to focus on design and development by making it easy and fast to request a part.
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How about you? What were your takeaways from RAPID + TCP 2024? Let me know in the comment section below.
If we didn’t get a chance to meet at the Ricoh booth, please message me any questions or comments about the show or our new holistic 3D print solution.