Global 3D Printing Technologies Case Study

Discussion

Discuss about the Global 3D Printing Technologies Case Study.

3D or Three Dimensional Printing Technology is the significant procedure that helps the materials in joining together within the control of any particular computer for making a physical object. This object is eventually printed by simply laying down several thin layers of materials that could be joined together for creating a 3D or Three Dimensional object (Miko?ajewska et al., 2014). This technology started its journey in 1980s with the proper construction of various cost effective prototypes of the product designs, which are being allowed for the designers to successfully test the creation before completing the final products. The utilization of this particular technology has grown exponentially. There are various new possibilities for this growth. It is considered to have to the potential to change the technology for the betterment of the users.

The following report will be outlining a brief description on the case study of 3D Printing. A medium sized manufacturing organization of Victoria, Australia has decided to expand their business with the help of this 3D printing. Hence, the CEO of the organization has asked the Head of ICT to investigate about the technology and all the types of applications, which utilize the technology of 3D printing. They have the significant prospect of deciding if this technology is extremely effective and efficient for expanding the business. This report will be focusing on the proper definition of 3D printing technology with its three applications. The various advantages and disadvantages of these applications will also be given here with suitable recommendations.

3D printing is the manufacturing procedure that eventually builds up several layers for creating a three dimensional solidified object from the digital model (Bose, Vahabzadeh & Bandyopadhyay, 2013). For the purpose of printing the 3D object, a manufacturer utilizes the CAD or computer aided design program for creating a specific digital model, which gets sliced into several thin cross sections, known as layers. During this printing procedure, the 3D printer initiates at the design bottom and thus building up successive material layers for finishing the object. Previously, this 3D printing technology was extremely costly and could not be utilized by all apart from the larger corporations, however, with the development and growth of desktop based 3D printers, this technology has become cost effective, thus could be afforded by all medium and small organizations (Sun et al., 2013). The 3D printers are utilized for creating anything, right from toys to parts of motorcycles or manufacturing various prototypes to test significantly. 3D printing has reduced the complexities of requirement of skilled craftsmen and various machineries.

Definition of 3D Printing Technology

3D printing technology has several significant applications that are being utilized by various organizations or enterprises worldwide. The domains, where this 3D printing has applications are manufacturing, architecture, medicine and finally customer art or design (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). Since, this organization in the provided case study is a manufacturing company, the applications of manufacturing domain are considered. The five important applications of 3D printing in manufacturing domain are as follows:

1. i) Cloud Based Additive Manufacturing: The first application is the cloud based additive manufacturing. It solely refers to the service oriented networked manufacturing model, where the clients can build parts with infrastructure as a service or IaaS, hardware as a service or HaaS, platform as a service or PaaS and software as a service or SaaS (Muth et al., 2014). There are various organizations that are using this application of 3D printing within their business.
2. ii) Rapid Prototyping: The second application is the rapid prototyping. The industrial 3D printers are utilized for the purposes of research and rapid prototyping. Several commercial organizations use this application.

iii) Rapid Manufacturing: The next application is the rapid manufacturing. It is the new method for manufacturing and all the procedures are unproven (Gross et al., 2014). This application is extremely popular for the manufacturing organizations worldwide.

1. iv) Mass Customization: Various organizations have created services where the customers could easily customize the objects with the help of simple web based customization software.
2. v) Agile Tooling: It is the procedure for utilizing modular means to successfully design tooling, which is being produced by the additive manufacturing method to enable fast prototyping (Ventola, 2014). This process is utilized in stamping or injection moulding.

Various organizations are utilizing these applications in their business. For example, Nokia had released their 3D designs for the case so that all the owners could easily customize their case and thus having it printing by 3D printing technology. Additive manufacturing is utilized by several popular organizations like General Electric, Boeing, Nike and many more.

There are several 3D printing technology based applications that are utilized by users worldwide (Chia & Wu, 2015). Amongst all of them, the three most suitable and appropriate applications of 3D printing technology for the Victorian organization and their business are as follows:

1. i) Additive Manufacturing: Additive Manufacturing is considered as one of the most significant and important applications in the technology of three dimensional or 3D printing. Traditional manufacturing methodologies involve any material being shaped or carved into the typical desired product by specific parts of this product being removed in several ways. This additive manufacturing is the structure that is being made by simply adding thousands of miniature layers that are combined for creating the product (Compton & Lewis, 2014). This process of additive manufacturing includes the proper utilization of special computer aided design software or CAD software that could easily relay the messages to the typical printer for the purpose of printing the product into the desired shape. The recent advancement of this application of 3D printing technology has acquired the entire world and also has various possibilities for the future development and growth. The procedure of additive manufacturing is extremely fast and there is a constant requirement of this particular application. It eventually adds up materials for layer upon layer. The object could be anything, whether it is plastic, concrete or metal. The most common uses of this additive manufacturing technology is the utilization of computers, systems, 3D modelling software, machine equipments and layering materials (Ladd et al., 2013). When the 3D modelling software is being produced, the equipment of additive manufacturing reads in the data from the file of CAD and thus lying down or adding up successive layers of powder, liquid and sheet materials within a layer upon layer manner for fabricating any 3D object.
2. ii) Rapid Prototyping: The second suitable application of 3D printing technology for the organization is rapid prototyping. It is the group of several techniques that are utilized for quickly fabricating a scale model of assembly or physical part by utilizing three dimensional CAD data. The construction of the assembly or part is generally done with the help of 3D printing or technology of additive layer manufacturing. The first methods for the rapid prototyping were utilized for producing parts of prototype as well as models (Campbell & Ivanova, 2013). The significant ability for reproducing the designs from any dataset has eventually given rise to the issues of rights, since it has the capability for interpolating the volumetric data from the 1D or one dimensional images.

iii) Mass Customization: The third significant application of 3D printing technology that would be suitable for the organization of case study is the mass customization. It is again one of the most utilized and popular applications of 3D printing technology that has helps the users for 3D printing (Petrick & Simpson, 2013). The entire concept of mass customization is to provide products to the customers that are some kind of visible to personal aspects. These personal aspects can subsequently range from the proper implementation of their name into the existing product for changing the product colour as per the choice of the customers. There is no additional cost in the mass customization.

The above mentioned three distinct applications of 3D printing comprise of various advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, these three applications also have ethical, social and legal point of views.

1. i) Additive Manufacturing: The advantages of additive manufacturing are as follows:
2. a) Cost Effective: The first and the foremost advantage of additive manufacturing is that it is extremely cost effective in nature (Klein, Lu & Wang, 2013). Most of the organizations often face major problems regarding cost. However, this particular application is afforded by all and hence is utilized by all.
3. b) Simple Process: The second significant advantage of this application is that it is extremely simple and thus could be used by all users. It does not comprise of any type of complexity.
4. c) Easy Training: The training programs for these applications are extremely easy and could be given to all users.
5. d) Reduction of Waste Production: Another important benefit of the application of additive manufacturing is that it reduces the waste production. Thus, the organizational expenses and energy are saved subsequently.
6. e) Energy Cost Saving: The fifth advantage of the application of additive manufacturing is that it saves energy cost and thus is extremely popular for all the organizations worldwide.
7. f) Free Variety: The final advantage of the application of additive manufacturing is that it has free varieties and thus changing any part is extremely simple.

1. a) High Production Cost: The most significant disadvantage of additive manufacturing application is that the production cost is extremely high (Gebler, Uiterkamp & Visser, 2014). Although, the overall cost is lower, due to the higher production cost, often this application is avoided by many organizations.
2. b) Production Process Discontinuous: The second disadvantage of this application is that the production process is discontinuous and thus the parts could be printed only one at a time.
3. c) Post Processing Needed: The third disadvantage of the additive manufacturing application is that it requires post processing. The dimensional accuracy is of lower quality.
4. d) Building Rates Slower: The final disadvantage of the additive manufacturing application is that the building rates are extremely slower (Gross et al., 2014).

This particular application is extremely ethical as it produces products for the betterment of the technological field. In social point of view, additive manufacturing is utilized for the purpose of social welfare. Moreover, this application is legal as it does not incur any illegal activities.

1. ii) Rapid Prototyping: The advantages of rapid prototyping are as follows:
2. a) Providing Final Look: The first and the foremost advantage of rapid prototyping is that it provides final look of the product. The user is able to see the final look of the product even before the product is being prepared (Ventola, 2014). Thus, the user would have an idea about the product visibility.
3. b) Finding Design Flaws: The second important advantage of the rapid prototyping application is to find all the flaws of design. These are found out in the early stages of development.
4. c) Cost Effective: The third significant advantage of the rapid prototyping application is that it is extremely cost effective and thus could be easily afforded by all users of 3D printing technology (Lipson & Kurman, 2013).
5. d) Speed: Another vital benefit of the rapid prototyping application is its speed. It does not incur huge time and the process could be completed in time.

1. a) Fails in Replication of System: The first disadvantage of this rapid prototyping is that it fails to replicate the real system or product (Compton & Lewis, 2014). It only constructs a prototype.
2. b) Cheap Working Model: Since, it is a prototype; the working model is extremely cheaper than any other working models.
3. c) Not Suitable for Large Products: This particular application is not at all feasible for the large products.

The ethical and social point of views of this application is that it is ethical and social in nature and is also legal (Bose, Vahabzadeh & Bandyopadhyay, 2013).

Three 3D Printing Technology based Applications

iii) Mass Customization: The advantages of mass customization are as follows:

1. a) Cost Effective: The cost consumption is very low and hence could be utilized by all.
2. b) Customer Experience: The customer is extremely happy with the product and also comprises of a unique buyer.
3. c) Competitive Advantages: This particular application creates competitive advantages for the organization (Chia & Wu, 2015).

The disadvantages of mass customization are as follows:

1. a) Needs Mass Deduction: The first demerit is that it requires mass deduction.
2. b) Not Feasible: Often this application is not feasible in nature.

This application is ethical, social and legal and provides benefits to the society.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that 3D printing is the process by which a material is solidified or joined under the proper control of computers for the purpose of creating a3D or three dimensional object.  This is done with all the materials being amended together. This 3D printing is utilized in additive manufacturing or AM as well as rapid prototyping. The objects could be of any shape or size for producing the three dimensional models. Various applications are present in this particular technology of 3D printing. It is the specific procedure, which significantly deposits the binder materials into the powder bed with the heads of inkjet printer. The above report has described about the case study of 3D printing technology in a typical medium sized enterprise of Victoria, Australia. This organization has corporate as well as retail clients and has several retail branches in Victoria and has now decided to move in operations of online business. They are majorly producing printers and computers for their businesses within Victoria. They wish to expand their e commerce activities in other Australian states and also in Oceania region. The creation of all the products of this particular organization would be done cheaply and easily with the help of the technology of 3D or three dimensional printing. Moreover, the major concerns of this organization regarding technology problems, authenticity and security would be resolved with this technology. This report has clearly stated about the three important applications of 3D printing with their significant advantages and disadvantages. Relevant recommendations are also provided for the organization.

The manufacturing organization started its journey 10 years ago and has become successful in its domain. This particular organization has its headquarters in Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. They are responsible for producing printers and computers or systems for the businesses within Victoria. Since, they have clients in both retail and corporate sectors, they should change their business processes and expand their e commerce services. This specific organization comprises of various problems regarding authenticity, technology problems and security. 3D printing could be an excellent solution to their problems. There are few recommendations that would be useful for this organization. They are as follows:

1. i) The first recommendation for the organization is to utilize the cloud based additive manufacturing application of 3D printing. This particular application would be responsible for reducing waste production. Since, it is a medium sized organization; the waste production should be reduced for maintaining a balance of their cost and production.
2. ii) The second recommendation for the organization is to incorporate the technology with proper security measures. This would ensure the safety and security of the business and the employees. Moreover, authenticity should be maintained by controlling the overall access of the business.

iii) The next recommendation for this particular organization is the regular maintenance of the machines. Since, these are machines, there is a always a chance to face technological failures and thus reducing the amount of production. If the machines would be maintained properly, the problem related to technology would be resolved and the organization will not face problems.

The above mentioned three recommendations would be extremely beneficial for the organization to mitigate all of their problems or issues

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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