Discussion
Discuss about the case study of 3D printing technology.
Global manufacturing, a medium sized manufacturing organization has completed 10 years in the manufacturing industry (Compton & Lewis, 2014). It is an Australia based manufacturing company with the headquarter based in Melbourne in Victoria. The headquarters, being in the industrial suburb of Melbourne has provided the company various advantages in the manufacturing business. The company currently produces computers and printers for businesses in Victoria. The company currently serves both the retail and the corporate clients. The company has established the presence in the retail business with various retail branches within Victoria. The company currently want to consider options for operating the business online. The company as part of business expansion plan wants to explore the possibilities of 3D printing (Gross et al., 2014). The company wants to know whether 3D printing is the correct option to chose as the process of business expansion is a complex process as it involves various strategic evaluation like cost, manufacturing and need for infrastructure support. The report will evaluate the various 3D printing base applications to evaluate if 3D printing is correct choice for the organization. The report after analysing various 3D printing based applications especially applications related to manufacturing and the medical industries. The applications will include the practical example not the generic application of 3D printing technology. The report will also recommend three applications along with advantages and disadvantages (Miko?ajewska et al., 2014). While providing the recommendations, it has been made sure that the application are evaluated not only in terms of relevance to the organizational needs , but also factors like legal , ethical and political issues has also been taken into account to avoid the issues that the organization might face while considering the applications.
Definition of 3D Printing Technology
3D printing, without involving much technical details, in the simplest terms, refers to technology that has the ability to print three dimensional or 3D objects, exactly like the objects people observes or interact with in their day to day life. The technology was a revolution when it was first introduced (Petrick & Simpson, 2013). It presented a lot of possibilities and industries were highly enthusiastic to explore the technology to bring revolution in the business process. However due to technological barriers the potential of the technology was not fully realized. With the advancement of technology companies are looking forward to fully commercialise the technology and make it integrated with the manufacturing of the products relevant to the industries. With 3D printing, it is possible to manufacture products with any kind of materials and the choice of the materials is completely customisable as per the manufacturing needs (Bose, Vahabzadeh & Bandyopadhyay, 2013). Various companies across various industries are already using the technology for producing commercial products.
Definition of 3D Printing Technology
General Electric, popularly known as GE has already made investment in the 3D printing technology. The American multinational conglomerate has adopted the 3D printing technology to boost the manufacturing of the fuel nozzles. These fuel nozzles will be used for the Leap jet engines. More than 8500 fuel nozzles will be manufactured with the 3D printing technology. The printers will be able to produce the nozzles with just one metal piece.. The company in order to expand the manufacturing has acquired Morris Technologies, a 3D printing based company. The company is also looking for expanding the staff to increase the production with the 3D printing technology. The production line has already 300 3D printers and GE Aviation has made the plan of producing 100,000 additive parts by 2020 (Gebler, Uiterkamp & Visser, 2014). The nozzles that will be produced with the 3D printing will be much stronger and the lighter than the sample produced in the traditional manufacturing process and it is surely an advantage as per the company. However, according to General Electric, the speed of manufacturing is a major concern with the 3D printing technology and it might not be able to produce the nozzles in a faster rate.
Amaero Engineering, an Australian additive manufacturing company, in 2015, made an collaboration with the Monash University Centre for the project of creating jet engine through 3D printing. Safran Electrical & Power, a French aerospace manufacturer was also part of the project. The jet engine manufactured in the project was the first 3D-printed jet engine in the world (Muth et al., 2014). The project received support from the Science Industry Endowment Fund. The project created a lot of buzz in the global aerospace sectors. Amaero can be considered as a spin-off company which was established as a part of the Monash University’s Additive Manufacturing (MCAM) department. The department was supervised by Professor Xinhua Wu considered as a prominent scientist in aerospace materials. Amaero was established in the year 2013 for producing commercial aerospace-material technology and it was Australia’s first company that made use 3D printing for manufacturing products. Amaero makes 3D printed components mainly for the aerospace, defense and high-end automotive companies based in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. The advantages of the 3D printing for manufacturing products as outlined by the CEO of the company are efficiency in complex design, speed in manufacturing and cost effective production. However according to the CEO, there are some disadvantages too (Campbell & Ivanova, 2013). The technology being relatively new produces technological barrier due to lack of expertise in the field and according to the company the traditional manufacturing process are likely to dominate the market, despite the numerous benefits that the technology provides.
3D Printing Technology in the Manufacturing Industry
Nano Dimension, one of the market leaders in the field of printing electronics has invested in the 3D printing technology. The company specializes in producing circuit boards with nano particle links. The design of the circuit boards for the computer parts such as graphics card, processor, video and audio cards are not only complex, but time consuming as well. With the in introduction of the 3D printing the company is aiming to produce multilayer circuit boards at a must faster rate than the production rate of the traditional factory manufacturing (Sun et al., 2013). The company is also looking forward to make it possible to manufacture the circuit boards directly with the 3D printer and integrate with the electronic components. This feature, according to the company will help to reduce the space in the electronic circuit boards which will help to improve the products like smart phone , tablet, personal computers by making it much more smaller and even more slimmer than the products available in the market.
Medical sector has been largely influenced by the introduction of the 3D printing technology. One of the most prominent is the use of the 3d printing technology for producing the prosthetics. Although custom made prosthetic are available in the market, but they are very costly and it is not affordable for many. Custom made prosthetic costs around $5,000 and in some case as high as $50,000. With the 3D printing technology it is possible to reduce the cost of the production (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). With 3D printing prosthetic can be made with fraction of the cost that is required to produce the ones already available in the market. 3D printings are doing wonder in the field of medical application. It has already been adopted by various countries around the world including several areas in the Africa that have been torn by the war. A project, lead by the University of Toronto is focusing to manufacture prosthetic sockets for the people of Uganda. The university has collaborated with the Autodesk Research and CBM Canada for the project. The product has the potential to be effective for the developed country as well. The 3D printed prosthetics is proving to be helpful for helping both the humans and the animals in regaining the use of their arms or legs.
The various applications of the technology are as follows:
Flexible Prototype Design: The prototype design is extremely flexible and thus is considered as one of the most important application of 3D printing technology. It needs a lot of time to design the circuit and make it integrated with the final design.
3D Printing Technology in the Medical Sector
Digital Manufacturing: The second application is digital manufacturing (Chia & Wu, 2015). It will reduce the time as well as the effort for product manufacturing.
Additive Manufacturing: The next application is additive manufacturing. It is the specific manufacturing model that is networked properly. Agile Tooling: Another important application is agile tooling, which subsequently helps to enable real fast prototyping. The injection molding could be easily done by agile tooling.
Mass Customization: The fifth application of 3D printing is mass customization. The web-based customization software is utilized for this.
The three applications of 3D printing perfect for this organization are as follows:
Flexible Prototype Design: The process of circuit board design is a complex and time consuming process (Klein, Lu & Wang, 2013). 3D printing will help to design the prototype in real faster to make the process of complex product design simpler. Often the designing of complete industrial product is fairly complex. It needs to evaluate a lot of requirements for the products. Even the best effort is provided in the design process it is not always possible to make the products completely error free. Often it requires adding modification to the final product to make it more suitable for the consumer market (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). Now it is fairly challenging to customize the manufactured product and it is also very costly. Now with the 3D printing, it is possible to design a prototype before the final product is manufactured. The prototype can be tested with the market and with that it is possible to find insights about the market condition and the necessary changes it need. Hence it provides a cost effective solution for the product design and also makes the complex process much simpler and efficient. It is extremely ethical, social and legal for the society.
Figure 3: Process of Prototyping
(Source: Compton & Lewis, 2014)
- ii) Digital manufacturing: It will only require designing the digital file for the design and the printer will be able to print the file directly. With the option to manufacture product directly from the source file will reduce the cost as well as the effort and the labor power that is required for the product manufacturing (Ventola, 2014). Now this will have a significant impact on the betterment of society. It is extremely ethical, social and legal.
iii) Printing with variety of materials: 3D printers allows for designing models and prototypes with variety of material. This is a huge advantage for the manufacturing organization Sometimes the company in order to make modification to the actual product makes changes in the manufacturing materials. However it is not possible to realize the effect of the modification till the product is completely manufactured (Ladd et al., 2013). There design of the prototype, before the product is launched in the market is a time consuming and costly process. 3D printing helps to design the prototype with variety of materials in a quick and cost effective manner. It is extremely ethical, social and legal.
Prosthetic Production with 3D Printing Technology
Advantages and Disadvantages of Three Proposed Applications
The advantages and disadvantages of the three proposed applications of 3D printing are as follows:
- i) Flexible Prototype Design: The advantages of flexible prototype design are given below:
- a) Reduction of complexity in design
- b) Cost effective manufacturing
- c) Faster production rate
- d) Effective consumer support
The disadvantages of flexible prototype design are as follows:
- a) Higher Cost of Production
- b) Discontinuous Process of Production
- c) Slow Rates of Building
- d) Requirement of Post Processing
- ii) Digital manufacturing: The advantages of digital manufacturing are as follows:
- a) Printing from source file
- b) Reduction in labor effort
- c) Cost efficient production (Lipson & Kurman, 2013).
The disadvantages of digital manufacturing are as follows:
- a) High Complexity
- b) Improper for Large Products.
iii) Printing with variety of materials: The advantages of material printing are as follows:
- a) Cost Effective
- b) Higher Speed
The disadvantages of material printing are as follows:
- a) No Energy Cost Saved.
- b) Requires Proper Training.
Conclusion
The purpose of the report was to review the 3D printing technology as the organization is planning to expand the manufacturing business and trying to extend the ecommerce presence with improvement in the retail business. The report has made an extensive analysis on the application of the 3D printing technology. The report has not considered generic application of the 3D printing technology. Rather it has focused on the practical applications that has been implemented by various companies or has been taken up as projects. This has helped to assess the organization point of view. It has been particularly helpful for understanding the way organizations around the worlds are considering the application of 3D printing to bring change in the business process. The analysis has provided some useful information about the 3D printing technology. One area which 3D printing can make revolution is the prototype design of the products. The prototype design helps to understand the product even before the manufacturing is completed. The ability of 3D printing to directly print from the digital design contained in the source file makes it possible to design the prototype even before the manufacturing is completed. The prototype can then be manufactured using any kind of material and the choice of the material can even be customized as per the requirement. Although there are several reasons for adopting 3D printing technology, however the issues of the 3D printing must be evaluated before making investment. Factors like violation of copyright design, privacy of the product and also the ethical issues might prove to be a barrier for full scale adoption of the technology in the manufacturing process. However with appropriate these issues can be addressed efficiently and the full possibilities of the technology can be realized.
Although 3D printing is an advanced printing technology, it has some issues as well. These issues are important as it will have a significant impact on the advantages of the technology. Although 3D printing allows printing with different materials, it is important to choose the correct material for the production. Once the best option is identified it is recommended to design a prototype and test that design with market requirements to find out the best material for production as per the market needs.
3D printing helps to print object directly from the source file. However it is important to make sure that the source file is original and does not have copyright issues. In order to avoid complexity due to the patent or copyright issues, it is recommended not to rely on any third party service provider for the design as there will always have the possibilities for the design to be applied for more than once by the organizations the service provider has previously partnered with.
3D printing will make reduction in manual work force for the manufacturing process. However it will take some time to fully integrate the change with the manufacturing process. Hence it is recommended not to make drastic changes in the manual workforce as the it will continue to dominate the manufacturing process provided the 3D printing technology is still relatively new in the market. Hence it is suggested to take smaller steps to effectively make changes in the working procedure of product design and manufacturing.
References
Bose, S., Vahabzadeh, S., & Bandyopadhyay, A. (2013). Bone tissue engineering using 3D printing. Materials today, 16(12), 496-504.
Campbell, T. A., & Ivanova, O. S. (2013). 3D printing of multifunctional nanocomposites. Nano Today, 8(2), 119-120.
Chia, H. N., & Wu, B. M. (2015). Recent advances in 3D printing of biomaterials. Journal of biological engineering, 9(1), 4.
Compton, B. G., & Lewis, J. A. (2014). 3D?printing of lightweight cellular composites. Advanced materials, 26(34), 5930-5935.
Gebler, M., Uiterkamp, A. J. S., & Visser, C. (2014). A global sustainability perspective on 3D printing technologies. Energy Policy, 74, 158-167.
Gross, B. C., Erkal, J. L., Lockwood, S. Y., Chen, C., & Spence, D. M. (2014). Evaluation of 3D printing and its potential impact on biotechnology and the chemical sciences.
Klein, G. T., Lu, Y., & Wang, M. Y. (2013). 3D printing and neurosurgery—ready for prime time?. World neurosurgery, 80(3), 233-235.
Ladd, C., So, J. H., Muth, J., & Dickey, M. D. (2013). 3D printing of free standing liquid metal microstructures. Advanced Materials, 25(36), 5081-5085.
Lipson, H., & Kurman, M. (2013). Fabricated: The new world of 3D printing. John Wiley & Sons.
Miko?ajewska, E., Macko, M., Ziarnecki, ?., Sta?czak, S., Kawalec, P., & Miko?ajewski, D. (2014). 3D printing technologies in rehabilitation engineering.
Muth, J. T., Vogt, D. M., Truby, R. L., Mengüç, Y., Kolesky, D. B., Wood, R. J., & Lewis, J. A. (2014). Embedded 3D printing of strain sensors within highly stretchable elastomers. Advanced Materials, 26(36), 6307-6312.
Petrick, I. J., & Simpson, T. W. (2013). 3D printing disrupts manufacturing: how economies of one create new rules of competition. Research-Technology Management, 56(6), 12-16.
Sun, K., Wei, T. S., Ahn, B. Y., Seo, J. Y., Dillon, S. J., & Lewis, J. A. (2013). 3D printing of interdigitated Li?Ion microbattery architectures. Advanced materials, 25(33), 4539-4543.
Ventola, C. L. (2014). Medical applications for 3D printing: current and projected uses. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(10), 704.
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