3-D Manufacturing Revolution Set to Explode?
3-D manufacturing is all the rage. Instead of sending manufacturing overseas to use cheap labor to churn out parts and products, U.S. entrepreneurs have developed 3-D manufacturing processes that essentially allow customized manufacturing of an item here rather than over there.
If this new way of making things catches on, the whole paradigm of manufacturing stuff in China on the cheap gets re-set. Maybe you still get your Nike's assembled in Malaysia and your cat litter packaged and shipped from China (Yes, they can make cat litter there and ship it here cheaper than we can make it here!). But apparently manufacturing by robots has become sophisticated enough to replace all those millions of Chinese - and other Asian - workers at a much lower cost. And if that's so, the robots aren't any cheaper over there than they would be plying their trade here in the U.S.
(This is one of those things that points to a possibly brighter future...once we get through this crisis, that is. That's why I'm bringing it up. It's kind of a break from the typical doom and gloom that comes with the biggest economic and financial crisis of our lifetimes.)
So what is 3-D manufacturing? Here's an explanation from Forbes:
In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humas using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. This is a cumbersome process that becomes more difficult and time-consuming with increasing complexity. In other words, the more complex the product you want to create, the more labor is required and the greater the effort.
If this new way of making things catches on, the whole paradigm of manufacturing stuff in China on the cheap gets re-set. Maybe you still get your Nike's assembled in Malaysia and your cat litter packaged and shipped from China (Yes, they can make cat litter there and ship it here cheaper than we can make it here!). But apparently manufacturing by robots has become sophisticated enough to replace all those millions of Chinese - and other Asian - workers at a much lower cost. And if that's so, the robots aren't any cheaper over there than they would be plying their trade here in the U.S.
(This is one of those things that points to a possibly brighter future...once we get through this crisis, that is. That's why I'm bringing it up. It's kind of a break from the typical doom and gloom that comes with the biggest economic and financial crisis of our lifetimes.)
So what is 3-D manufacturing? Here's an explanation from Forbes:
In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humas using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. This is a cumbersome process that becomes more difficult and time-consuming with increasing complexity. In other words, the more complex the product you want to create, the more labor is required and the greater the effort.
In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models—adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials—much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. This allows the creation of objects without any sort of tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce any waste material, and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, in using laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text, in using a 3D printer, we can print sophisticated 3D structures for about the cost of a brick.
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