The possibilities offered by 3D printing are no longer merely speculative. It is now a requirement for manufacturing. The benefits of additive manufacturing were still speculative just a few years ago. We debated whether the switch from traditional, high-volume processes to additive processes was financially or technologically justified. 3D printing is becoming a common manufacturing technology as a result of the rapidly expanding number of use cases and the demonstrable time savings in design and manufacturing as well as products of higher efficacy. The future of 3D printing is bright as an increasingly important component of the manufacturing renaissance.
Additive manufacturing has reached its full potential. The expanded digital infrastructure, the maturation of materials development and supply chains, and increased stability in additive manufacturing technologies are to blame for the transformations in key business areas that many industries, including healthcare, aerospace, and defense, have been experiencing. By using additive manufacturing to create interior aircraft components like ducting, vents, and airflow systems, designers in the aerospace industry are able to reduce assembly weight, reduce the number of components in assemblies, and conform to the tight cabin interiors.
In addition, 3D printing gives designers the freedom to experiment with more effective and efficient part shapes and reduces the number of potential points of failure, thereby improving thermal environment management. These capabilities provide manufacturers with a previously unattainable level of design, production, and supply chain flexibility as product development cycles decrease across all industries. We discovered in Jabil’s third biennial 3D Printing Trends survey that the range of additive manufacturing applications has significantly changed over the past two years. In fact, use cases for jigs, fixtures, and tooling increased from 37% in 2019 to 57% this year, while research and development surpassed prototyping as the top use case.
In addition, we observed a significant rise in the percentage of businesses that use 3D printing for the production of bridges—from 39% to 56% in just two years. Lastly, production parts are now printed using 3D printing by over six in ten people. You can download the entire survey report. More than half of the senior management of their company responded that they viewed 3D printing as a “strategic capability.” The future of 3D printing is heavily influenced by leadership’s tendency to focus on the bigger picture. But as the use of additive manufacturing technology grows, how will it affect other manufacturing sectors and industries? What can we expect from 3D printing in the future? Five predictions follow.
1. Rapid prototyping to production scalability Over the past few years, the use of 3D printing for jigs, fixtures, and tooling, bridge production, and production parts has increased dramatically. During that time, the heavy equipment and industrial machines industries have used jigs, fixtures, and tooling the most frequently; healthcare has used bridge production the most frequently; and orthopedics and industrial machines have used 3D printing for production parts the most frequently.
For jigs, fixtures, and tools, participants in the heavy equipment and industrial machines industries say they use additive manufacturing. Every stage of the product development process gains from additive manufacturing, which makes it simple to scale from rapid prototyping to full-scale manufacturing. After all, lifecycle management efficiency is one of the most important benefits of additive manufacturing that is missing from prototyping without considering full-scale production.
A team can iterate on designs and features for free when volumes are still relatively low, such as when a brand wants to print 100 parts for testing or regional market testing. Using 3D printing, you can even quadruple that number without having to retool. When high tooling costs and high fixed costs can prevent new businesses from entering a market, additive remains the best option for low- to mid-volume production. 3D-printed parts are capable of seamlessly integrating into rate production equipment, such as injection molding, with the appropriate level of planning, engineering, and material development.
Instead of pulling a part from a supply warehouse, manufacturers can produce a part on demand and produce it as needed. Inventory and storage costs can be reduced in a measurable way with on-demand production.
According to a report from MIT, 3D printing can cut inventory of spare parts by 90% in the automotive industry. Switching from traditional to additive manufacturing for certain parts in shipbuilding has proven to yield attractive returns. According to research from Gdynia Maritime University in Poland, using 3D printing to produce the same metal part reduced the production time to less than 72 hours at a cost of $1,250 for an average turnaround of 12 weeks and an average cost of $20,000 compared to traditional methods. 94%
approximate savings in production costs compared to traditional methods for a metal component that required an average turnaround time of 12 weeks and a cost of $20,000 We’re switching from a capability discussion to a capacity discussion right now. All aspects of new product introduction (NPI) will increasingly incorporate 3D printing application opportunities in the future, with the importance of scaling volume to achieve price points decreasing.
2. Digitizing the Supply Chain to Increase Its Resilience The global pandemic has demonstrated the unpredictability of global supply chains. In the past, resilience has been prioritized over cost and efficiency in supply chain management. When faced with a disruption as significant as the pandemic, many supply chains failed; COVID-19’s impact on supply chains was felt in every industry, but healthcare and medical devices were particularly affected. Increasing the resilience of the supply chain is now a major industry goal. Additive manufacturing was a significant component of the solution when the healthcare supply chain was hampered by a lack of ventilator parts and personal protective equipment (PPE). Superfeet, a manufacturer of insoles, devoted its available capacity to the production of face shields in response to the challenges posed by the pandemic.
They were able to quickly and inexpensively change their production lines to produce shields because 3D printing was their primary manufacturing method. In addition to facilitating the production of face shields and masks, innovations in ventilator components made possible by 3D printing saved lives. For instance, Jabil was in favor of the rapid development of ventilator splitters, which allowed for the simultaneous use of one ventilator for multiple patients. We were able to produce more than 60,000 splitters of the necessary quality to guarantee positive patient outcomes using additive manufacturing in just three weeks. The fact that additive manufacturing is a major component of digital transformation is not surprising.a file that contains a representation of the finished product as opposed to a design that may compromise “product intent” in order to adhere to the conventional manufacturing process.
The first step on the path to digital transformation is 3D printing. Additive manufacturing converts the piles of boxes that take up physical space into digital files that can be stored in the Cloud and accessed quickly when required, as opposed to stocking a warehouse with components that may become obsolete and massive quantities of spare parts that may or may not be in demand. The ability to distribute manufacturing is also altering how businesses are incorporating the 3D printing process into their product strategies, in addition to digital inventories. Given the economic paradigms that have order technologies
