Facebook, Twitter and different technology blogs have been talking very much about 3D printing. Due to its impact on product development and innovation, this kind of technology continues to soar in terms of popularity. According to IT experts, 3D printing cost will be reduced that it will start to spread in the consumer market. But before it reaches you, here are the known advantages of 3D printing (also called additive manufacturing) to the world.
Reduced Manufacturing Cost
The world’s largest brands including Coca-Cola and Converse have been using 3D printing technology to cut a huge slab in expenses. Compared to traditional manufacturing methods, additive manufacturing can reduce cost up to 70%. The 3D printing tech will help you achieve this through lower shipping and packaging prices for overseas orders, lesser involvement of manpower and cheaper but more reliable raw materials.
If 3D printing technology was fully adopted, it would replace prototyping injection mold tools and other expensive equipments. With this kind of manufacturing, you can generate copies of parts or the actual replica of an object with lower amounts than traditional prototyping and tooling. Not to mention that time saved with 3D printing, can help your savings and earnings grow exponentially.
Quick Production
If traditional prototyping is a running horse cart, 3D printing technology is a sports car on its top speed. That is how they differ when it comes to speed of production. They give you the same results but the time frame of achieving those is very much quicker with additive manufacturing. Industrial 3D printers can produce objects in a matter of hours. While with the traditional methods, most prototyped products take up to several days or even weeks.
Health Advantages
With 3D printing, you may be able to print almost anything that you want to replicate. Because of that, if a team of medical professionals collaborated with 3D printing specialists, the result would be groundbreaking and amazingly beneficial. It was anticipated that 3D printing would provide huge contributions in the field of health and wellness.
Apart from prosthetic limbs, medical facility researchers are looking forward to a day of producing vital organs such as heart, kidneys, lungs and more with 3D printing. This would eliminate the need for organ donors and would make the organ transplant transfer process faster with a higher success rate.
Eco-friendly
Manufacturing with 3D printers can also cause huge benefits to the environment. Traditional prototyping leaves an awful amount of waste and this is not a good thing. In aircraft production, 90% of the materials are being thrown away. But with 3D printing technology the amount of leftovers may be reduced for more than 50%. Apart from lesser waste, this eco-friendly method can save more energy and human resources. You can also save space by ditching the old machines with separate functions as with 3D printing technology, you won’t need an extra equipment to create a part of the product.
Quality Products and New Designs
The 3D printing technology offers creation of sustainable, marketable and top-class products. Apart from creating perfect replicas with accurate size and description, additive manufacturing lets you explore on different types of raw materials. You can also play along with discovering new shapes, design and structures for the benefit of fashion.
Jensen Carlyle writes about business and manufacturing technology topics such as process optimization and continuous improvement.