Posted on 05/29/2016 10:09:31 AM PDT by Haddit
We know that 3D printing will disrupt manufacturing and the international supply chain, but nobody seems to know how yet. Now a paper from the Business School at Lingman Normal University in Zhanjiang has tried to separate the wood from the trees.
The general consensus is that 3D printing is going to have a profound effect. The concept of mass producing goods half way around the world and then shipping them is inherently inefficient. UPS clearly agrees, as it is investing heavily in 3D printing centers throughout the US that can produce goods on demand for local delivery.
So even the big players are panicking, but what will actually happen? There are theories that much of the labor market could actually be wiped out and logistics will become a casualty of the digital era. This doesn’t take into account our natural capacity to adapt, though, and the fact that we have been here before.
(Excerpt) Read more at 3dprintingindustry.com ...
The general consensus is that 3D printing is going to have a profound effect. The concept of mass producing goods half way around the world and then shipping them is inherently inefficient. UPS clearly agrees, as it is investing heavily in 3D printing centers throughout the US that can produce goods on demand for local delivery.
So even the big players are panicking, but what will actually happen? There are theories that much of the labor market could actually be wiped out and logistics will become a casualty of the digital era. This doesn’t take into account our natural capacity to adapt, though, and the fact that we have been here before.
China will have a huge unemployment problem...............
Somebody has to make and ship the raw materials..............
Cycle times are going to have to get waaaay shorter, and material costs are going to have to be waaaaay reduced. Other than that, tooling costs are great.
For those that don't know about China's "cultural revolution"...
Mao urged the peasants to build backyard blastfurnaces to make iron and steel for tools. The peasants were supposed to melt down scrap metal to make useful items such as tools and utensils. In practice the program worked backwards with peasants melting down useful items to produce unusable masses of metal. This happened because the State exhorted the peasants to increase production from the backyard blast furnaces and when they ran out of scrap they started melting down anything they could find, including tools and utensils. Some of this destruction of useful objects to increase the production from the backyard blastfurnaces might be attributed to enthusiasm but probably more of it was due to there being quotas of production from the furnaces that had to be met. Communist leaders at the local level faced with possible personal punishment for not meeting the quota or destruction of useful items of metal and of wood for fuel usually would choose to try to meet the quota. But the mixture of metals and the impurities in the fuel produced metal that could not be formed into anything useful. The metal was too brittle.The more insidious consequence of the backyard blastfurnaces and other nonagricultural projects of the Great Leap Forward was that they took labor away from food production and led to a shortfall in food. China was, as always in recent history, on the edge of subsistence and any decrease in food production means privation if not starvation.
It’ll be great on the supply chain, it’ll be really bad for anybody that makes money on the supply chain.
We’ve never been here before. We’ve gone through major technological changes, but the previous tech changes creates new jobs, new things for people to do. 3D printers have the potential to render the entire retail sector obsolete while not actually giving us something new to do.
There has to be a customer base with the ability to purchase. So many disruptive changes coming, and so many of them will reduce employment. It’s very unsettling.
It’s called additive manufacturing whereas you only use the material you need.
With filament, it looks like weed eater line, it is extruded into much smaller melted plastic that hardens in place, building a part.
With resin, you start with a liquid that is hardened with light layer by layer.
You don’t need near as much material as you would with starting off with a block of aluminum and removing what you don’t want. And you don’t need all the tooling and machines required for manufacturing.
It’s interesting. It’ll break one of two ways: either we’ll be freed up for creative pursuits (Star Trek) or we’ll have a permanent population of lay abouts (Judge Dredd). Either way we’re going to have to figure out how to make things work in a world where we honestly don’t need most of the population to be doing anything other than consume.
It’s best used for one-off applications and very low volume production, currently. The cost isn’t competitive with mass production.
It’ll shake out eventually, but getting from point A to point B could be unpleasant.
Some of the much bigger 3D printer companies already are nearing the speed of injection molding.
The cost of a spool of filament for my printer costs about $50, granted it doesn’t run much since I only use it for a few parts at a time. I haven’t had to replace a color yet after 3 years.
That’s fine for parts that don’t require any significant strength. You won’t find 3D printed mechanical parts on airplanes.
One problem; they have jumped over the ‘copy’ function. I have not yet found an outfit near me that will take my specially shaped lump of inert metal and . . . . MAKE ANOTHER ONE. That’s all I want - another one! But they want computer files: stl, obj, zip, step, stp, iges, igs, 3ds, wrl. I just want another one of these.
When we think of a star wars replicator and compare that to 3D printing, the fuss is justified. It is however unrealistic.
My view is that 3D printing is good for designers and making and then refining prototypes. I have yet to see a product with lots of sales potential be made by the 3d printers and actually sell.
I would think that the UPS centers with the printers are the same as copy machines. Those designers not able to afford the machines can visit UPS and provide drawings to make a prototype
That’s the part that the breathless promoters miss, or don’t want you to hear.
It will be revolutionary for small volume manufacturing, making parts for which the tooling no longer exists (think vintage cars and airplanes), etc.
Interesting, and there’s no question that on-demand 3D printing is going to be a gargantuan opportunity area over the next decade. However, I expect you’re also going to see a lot of consolidation in this area. Sounds like something Amazon will look to get into when the time is ripe.
They have printers that print are carbon fiber reinforced and they have already proven a 3D printed jet engine. Even today there is a new 3D printed gun being reported and being reported as being a prospective problem controlling.
If you read the article you would have seen that UPS is setting up print stations over the U.S.
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