New Technologies (4 of 6): 3D Printing

Definition:

3-D printing is better known as Additive Manufacturing. As the name goes, additive manufacturing is a process which uses digital data to build up a component by depositing layers of material. It is a process of making three dimensional solid object, virtually of any shape, out of a digital model.

Thus, to start with, what is popularly known as 3D Printing has little to do with traditional printing (as in books and newspapers) and more to do with classical manufacturing.

Typically in conventional manufacturing, we take a form of material – say a block of metal, and remove the material by using processes like cutting, drilling, boring, milling etc. to give it the required shape. In today’s context, this could be called “subtractive manufacturing”.

Additive Manufacturing has been around since 1980’s for plastic products and since 1995 for metal products.

 Printing medium and technology:

The materials that are used are metals, plastics and various composite materials. Typically they are in fine powder form and are bonded with binders. The binder is cured with heat or with ultraviolet light.

3D printer is more like an industrial robot than a conventional paper printer. It’s function is to deposit the material on a surface layer-by-layer until it gets a solid form.

Additive Manufacturing uses various technologies like sheet lamination, material jetting, material extrusion, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) etc. The application of the method depends upon – the materials used, binders applied, and applications or products being manufactured.

 Present and future applications

What if anyone could make almost anything they need, anywhere?

Imagine, you want to gift a dress to your spouse for his/her birthday. And all you need to do is download the design, decide about the material, colour etc. and get it printed on a 3D printer from the comfort of your home. Imagine, if as a manufacturer you can deliver the material in no time once the design is finalized. Or that you do not need to invest in special purpose machines anymore, and in specific tools, moulds and dies.

Some typical applications include:

High value personalized products

Individual designs

Multi-material products

Rapid proto-typing and tooling for short run manufacturing

Organs printing: Dental applications are very much in fashion. This is mainly due to the inherent customization requirement of each person. Experimentations have been done on properties of human bones, and scientists have successfully bio-printed live kidneys and liver cells. We are yet years away from organ transplant through the 3D printed products – but efforts are on.

Core technology of “engineered products” industry: Where Customization is inherent

It could be interesting to visits the sites like www.kraftwurx.com to see the actual offering of 3D printed products. Some equally insightful sites could be:

www.renishaw.com/en/additive-manufacturing-systems--15239

www.pomgroup.com/

www.phenix-systems.com/en

www.3trpd.co.uk/

www.voxeljet.de/en/

Additive manufacturing is about new technologies and new equipment. It may not be wrong to say that Germany is likely to dominate in the field of additive manufacturing equipment.

 Benefits of 3D Printing

Low costs where throughput is not high - since expensive tooling is not essential eg. injection moulding. In rapid proto-typing, 3D Printing has reduced the lead time from weeks to days, or even hours.

Virtually no geometric limitations for manufacturing of metal components. In subtractive manufacturing, the processes (drilling, boring, cutting etc.) have significant bearing upon the shape of the ultimate product. In additive manufacturing your creativity takes precedence over the process. As long as you can design it on your computer, you can produce it on the shop-floor. This enables you to produce products – not only with new design, but also altogether new products of which no one has thought before.

In conventional manufacturing, the cost of complexity grows exponentially. In additive manufacturing you may add complexity to products for free. This leaves scope for creativity and innovation.

Light-weight manufacturing. By definition, additive manufacturing “adds” material – only as required. In conventional manufacturing, material is subtracted as required – leaving a lot of unessential material still as part of the final product. It finds a lot of application in airline industry and in auto industry, where the weight of the aircraft / automobile affects the operating cost substantially, and over the life-cycle of the equipment.

3D Printing is opening up opportunities for machines and tools manufacturers, manufacturing-service providers and designers.

 Limitations of 3D Printing

Whatever may be the talk about serial production or mass production on 3D printers – so long it is in very few areas where it has made inroads eg. manufacturing readiness of additive manufacturing is in the fields of dental applications and design objects. Whatever 3D Printing industry may wish to say, we are still far away from “manufacturing readiness” for majority of our products. Prototyping (producing samples) is cost-effective by 3D, customization and small-batch manufacturing may be cost-effective, but when it comes to mass production, 3D Printing has still to prove its cost-effectiveness. For a majority of products, it is still at the laboratory level.

Classical manufacturing has its traditions of - removing only that material that is not essential, additive manufacturing has its traditions of prototyping (developing in a lab). It inherently slows the build rate.

Additive manufacturing is expensive. So long, metal powders are not a standard raw material format. This needs to be made from ingots, billets, slabs etc. Roland Berger estimates that incremental additive manufacturing costs (material costs, production costs) will continue to outweigh incremental additive manufacturing gains (weight reduction and assembly costs reduction). Additive manufacturing can become commercially viable only by improving product performance and reducing the product life-cycle costs.

Evolving manufacturing process: Additive manufacturing process is still unable to provide acceptable surface finish and dimensional accuracy. This leads to additional processing for fine-tuning.

Size of the product is, currently, limited by the size of the “3D Printer”. In conventional manufacturing, the product is at the focal point. Machines and tools work around the product.

 Some new dimensions opened by 3D Printing

Is this the end of mass production? Is it the beginning of the end of “low-cost manufacturing”? Will local manufacturing be in vogue again?

Jeff Immelt, GE Chairman and CEO noted some time ago: “Manufacturing is being digitized, decentralized, and democratized. The notion of manufacturing has changed and the era of labour arbitrage is ending.” In plain words that means – the shift of productions processes to low-cost countries will not only slow-down but may even reverse. Production will take place closer to the locations where customer exists.

I do not consider that end of mass production is anywhere near. We might even see more standardization and reduction of variants, in fact, driving the cost of traditional manufacture further down. Under those circumstances additive manufacturing will be used to complement subtractive manufacturing rather than replace it.

Will 3D Printing provide level playing field for smaller, nimbler and agile manufacturers? Since parts may be manufactured locally, will new Supply Chains and new Logistics solution evolve? Will there be a paradigm shift in manufacturing processes since creative production will become more important than mass production?

Definitely there will be an advantage for the local, smaller manufacturers of components over the large factories which are using more of efficient but rigid production processes. However, the time is still to come when the advantage can be used in practise on a commercial scale. May be, by that time, large multinationals too may go for establishing smaller, agile factories rather than giant shop-floor areas.

Supply chains, logistics and production processes will, obviously, undergo a sea-change as the lot-sizes change, and component manufacturing becomes more local or in-house, many presently used equipment and tools will eventually become redundant. The concept of vendor management will change. What happens to Six-Sigma methodology with its DPMO (Defects Per Million Opportunities) concept is anybody's guess. There is a long way to go before we reach that position, but that should not dither us from thinking of the shift and preparing for it.

 Is India ready for the shift with issues relating to employment and skills?

Not really! We need to do a lot on - understanding the context and developing the skills – not only for 3D printing but for the overall concept of Smart Manufacturing. We need to take a step back from the mesmerizing buzzwords, and really think over the concept of digitization of manufacturing – industry, politicians, and academia alike. Once we decide for ourselves first – how am I going to make use of the new technologies of 3D Printing, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing and Smart Manufacturing, only then can we decide about the way-ahead and the skills development.

 What happens to – “Make in India”?

In spite of the future trend towards local manufacturing, Make-In-India is not in danger of faltering. Production of the majority of products will - still remain on mass scale, still be not-overly-complex, still be made with traditional materials, and still be using conventional manufacturing methods. Still the labour cost advantage will continue to play a big role in the decision about manufacturing location. Certainly, we need to advance in Additive Manufacturing since it will increasingly complement the conventional manufacturing.

Can now terrorists manufacture their own guns, missiles and drones?

Not only gun controls, there are several concerns relating to 3D Printing which need to be addressed over the next years. US Government is banning legally 3D printing of weapons by individuals. But legal prohibition does not restrict technical possibilities. Non-state actors may still manufacture the weapons simply by downloading CAD files.

There are legal issues to be addressed in case of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) once one is allowed to print a product at home based upon a widely circulated data file - something similar to film or music industry losing millions of dollars today due to piracy. Only it will be for a wide range of products and on a much much larger scale.

Ethical issues concerning bio-printing of organs also need to be addressed.

3D printing of drugs and other prohibited substances has to be dealt with.

The concerns will be looked in to by Governments, industry, scientists and society over the next years and decades. What is "normal" and what is "exotic" is in our mind. As technology progresses, drilling-cutting-boring of material may turn exotic, and adding material layer-by-layer may become normal. We from manufacturing sector need to keep our eyes and minds open to look into the possibilities of application of 3D Printing in order to further innovation, bring out break-through products, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experience.

(Source: Scientific American, Wikipedia, McKinsey, GoogleSearch, RolandBerger, General Electric, @BANXcartoons etc.)