Wohlers: Future is Rapid Manufacturing, Not RP
What is the first name that pops into your head when you think about 3D printing and rapid manufacturing? If it’s Terry Wohlers, join the club. Wohlers is far and away the leading luminary in a field that is rapidly developing a constellation of stars.
Don’t just take our word for it – in August 2007, Wohlers was voted the most influential person in rapid product development and rapid manufacturing by TCT Magazine.
Based out of Fort Collins, Co., he heads Wohlers Associates, a 22-year-old independent consulting firm. When not trotting around the globe to consult with industry and academia and deliver keynote speeches at industry conferences, Wohlers is compiling information for his definitive state-of-the-industry Wohlers Report. The first week of September 2008 he took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the unique capabilities of additive fabrication technologies, and what the future holds for the industry.
RapidToday: Besides situations where parts are impossible to manufacture any other way, what are generally the best ROI situations for additive fabrication in rapid manufacturing?
Wohlers: When volumes are relatively low and complexity is high. Those are the two main ones. Size is one too. If the parts are large then it’s more difficult to justify the use of an additive process.
Let’s take an example of one that’s been really successful – custom in-the-ear hearing aids. That’s where volumes are low – in fact you could argue they are a volume of one because there is no two alike – they are highly complex in shape, and they’re small. And, because they are small, they build quickly and inexpensively. Hearing aids are close to the best-case scenario when considering ROI criteria for manufacturing using an AF process. Everything lines up beautifully for them.
RapidToday: Are most hearings aids made in this way now?
Wohlers: The custom canal aids are. Most major companies in the business are using stereolithography or the Perfactory system from envisionTEC. Their major manufacturing facilities are geared up with these machines. If you go to smaller facilities in more remote areas around the world, the chances are reasonably good they are doing it the old way because they don’t have the volume to justify the expense of this process. For all ... Posted by admin on Friday, 05-Sep-2008 06:06 AM Despite slow and steady adoption in the industrial sector, rapid prototyping in art objects and household decorative design has been disappointing. Design products manufactured using additive fabrication technologies still pale significantly in contrast to the material variety, finish, and the low cost of products made using traditional methods. Some in the design business attribute the glacially slow transition to layered manufacturing to simple lack of maturity in the technology. “People
“So even though RP will to some extent create its own sphere of objects,” she continues, “I feel like there's a long haul before it can compete in the popular mind with ‘straight’ production techniques in plastic, glass and metal, let alone wood and textiles. I think an art buyer who doesn't care about the technology for its own sake, and just wants a wonderful object, does better overall looking at a mature craft such as art glass or stone carving. So barring quantum leaps in the technology, I predict slow growth among hardcore early adopters for quite a while to come.” Grossman is no idle observer – she was one of the earliest adopters and biggest proponents of digital design and 3D rapid manufacturing for design products. Others in the business attribute the sluggish technology adoption not to the traditional bogeyman of high costs, but to inertia factors and consumers’ narrow self-interest. “Yes our products are still more expensive on the retail level,” admits RP designer and entrepreneur Janne Kyttanen, “but think how the entire planet is wired around a mass production infrastructure, which has been created over the last 200 years. A lot of countries are being exploited in this and eventually we will pay the price in cleaning this mess…our oceans, environments, air, planes crashing into buildings etc., but nobody stops to calculate how much this actually costs all together. Which is cheaper?” Kyttanen exchanged emails with RapidToday from Europe, where he established FOC (Freedom of Creation) in his native Finland in 2000 (from 2006 it has been based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). FOC specializes in design for rapid manufacturing of interior products and accessories. FOC has had to exercise a combination of rig... Posted by admin on Tuesday, 29-Jul-2008 09:21 AM
Rapid prototyping is exciting, but the real promise of additive fabrication is its potential for rapid manufacturing, or the volume manufacture of production parts. Due to the cost of RP systems and materials, and the slow build time of parts, rapid manufacturing is generally not yet feasible – except in the booming niche of micro additive fabrication. Micro RM has even higher systems and materials costs than standard rapid manufacturing, but with the ability to manufacture thousands of parts in a single build, the time per part is much less than other
Micro RP FineLine Prototyping... Posted by admin on Wednesday, 02-Jul-2008 20:50 PM
RP Struggles to Find Niche in Art,
Design
in the RP industry sometimes seem to me a little blinkered about how limited the available materials and quality are,” says artist Bathsheba Grossman by email. “One has only to look around a room to observe that most artifacts are made of materials not accessible to RP, with finishes and quality beyond anything it can achieve, at prices that are dirt cheap by comparison.”
Quin Lamp
Photo courtesy Bathsheba Grossman
Micro Parts Dominate Rapid Manufacturing
alternatives. Add to that the standard advantages of rapid prototyping – no tooling cost, the ability to create impossible-to-machine-or-mold geometries – and you have a compelling case. As material options expand – see NanoTool from DSM Somos and Greystone Nanocomposite from 3D Systems – so will the number of users of the technology.
A Medical 16-Conductor Micro Connector
Photo courtesy FineLine Prototyping
Following, we look at some of the players in this field. (Some portions of semiconductor manufacturing and nanotechnology manufacturing are additive as well, but we will not be covering them here.)
> Additive Fabrication Transforms Dental Labs
> 3D Printer Uses Standard Paper
> Despite Housing Woes, Architectural 3D Printing Thrives
> Software Eases 3D Printing of Avatars