We’ve come a long way since the 1980s in many regards. That’s also true for 3D printing. Around its inception, many considered the technology neat, but lacking applicability beyond the production of scale or aesthetic prototypes – also known as rapid prototyping.
But that was 40 years ago, and despite how old that might make some of us feel, 40 years is a long time. Today, 3D printing has reached commercial and industrial viability. This is further evidenced by the fact that the terms “3D printing” and “additive manufacturing” are largely interchangeable today.
Businesses across all industries, from soft drink companies to NASA, have acknowledged the benefits of additive manufacturing (AM). The immense variety of available 3D printers has enabled them to optimize topographies to save resources and improve functionality, make their parts both lighter and more durable with advanced materials, create complex geometries and internal structures traditional manufacturing just can’t produce, and much more. Simply put, AM can create more complex and optimized parts than any other technology.
But how can additive manufacturing help your business become more efficient? In this article, we’ll present 10 common business challenges in the form of questions you can ask yourself. If your answer to even one of them is “yes,” you should consider getting into 3D printing. The ROI will be worth it for your operation.
Read on to learn how 3D printing gives your business a competitive edge.
Q. Does an unpredictable part supply chain cripple your productivity when it backs up?
To build anything, you need the appropriate parts. Unfortunately, the supply chains for specialized parts and components can be long, with delivery times measured in weeks to months. If your chosen parts producer is busy with other orders, the wait time could stretch even further. Needless to say, without the parts, you can’t build anything and your business productivity suffers.
3D printing provides the answer to this issue by allowing you to produce the parts you need in-house. As such, the lead time for new parts is however long it takes to design, print, and post-process the part – but it’ll surely be shorter than ordering it from a third-party supplier. Additionally, if your parts have previously been manufactured through traditional tooling, switching to 3D printing will cut lead times even further, since AM is practically guaranteed to be faster than CNC or other tooling methods.
A great example of supply chain optimization through AM comes from Moog Aircraft Group, one of the leading producers of aircraft control systems. The company had previously acquired the CMM inspection fixtures it needs from an outside manufacturer, with average lead times in the range of four to six weeks. Moog partnered with 3D printing company Stratasys to start printing the fixtures in-house from ASA thermoplastics. As a result, the company cut delivery time for a new fixture from weeks to 20 hours. The technology has also allowed them to test new part structures in a matter of hours instead of weeks.
Q. Do you use unique or obsolete machinery that needs expensive spare parts?
Specialized business operations require specialized tools. But that specialization is also a weakness – the stock of spare parts can be limited. It gets even more difficult if you use old tools that are no longer in production. If a part brakes, spares might simply not exist on the market anymore.
AM makes it easy to acquire even the most unique spare parts. All you need to produce the part is a CAD file and a printer. Materials aren’t really an issue – metal 3D printing has reached a point where even small, office or workshop-sized machines can produce durable spare parts.
Of course, if you don’t have the 3D model, you can’t print a file. Luckily, you can 3D scan a part to quickly produce a spare. For example, Dutch 3D printing company Visual First was able to scan and print a distributor cap for a 1919 Harley-Davidson – a part that hasn’t been produced for nearly a century.
In a more business-aligned but still gearhead-adjacent example, Porsche launched its Porsche Classic service in 2018. Many car enthusiasts love their vintage Porsches, but this presents the automaker with a significant stocking challenge. It’s incredibly expensive to produce and stock these generally obsolete car parts, considering how low the demand is. At the same time, the company wanted to keep the owners of its vintage automobiles happy.
Today, Porsche prints genuine parts on demand, all thanks to AM. The Porsche Classic service supports more than a dozen vehicles, with the oldest model being the 1948 Porsche 356. Now the only issue is for each vintage Porsche owner to decide whether a 3D printed part can be considered authentic enough for their classic car. If you ask Porsche, they can.
One more example of 3D printed spare parts production comes from the German railway company Deutsche Bahn. The company still uses the trusty Class 294 locomotives from the 1960s, but their spare parts supply has long since been exhausted. As a result, Deutsche Bahn was forced to get replacement wheelset bearing covers cast in metal – a months-long and expensive process. To save time and costs, the company turned to Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing, a well-established 3D printing technology. Now, Deutsche Bahn can produce a 28-pound spare bearing cover in only seven hours.
Q. Does assembling components and products slow down your business?
Due to the limitations of traditional metal tooling or plastic molding, many complex components must be assembled from several individual parts. The assembly process wastes work hours and unnecessarily lengthens production time. Manufacturing consultancy Disher puts it succinctly: “The assembly of a product is nothing but a cost to a company.”
AM can remove assembly from the equation altogether. As 3D printers produce parts layer by layer, they can consolidate several different parts into one component. Of course, this will require redesigning the part in question, but the time spent on the redesign is nothing compared to that which would be wasted on assembling it. Redesign for part consolidation also brings with it additional benefits – it can significantly reduce the weight of a part, thus resulting in further cost savings.
GE is one of the many companies that have found success with redesign for part consolidation. In a great example case, the company used 3D printing to reduce a fuel nozzle from 20 parts into a single unit. The new part was 25% lighter than an ordinary nozzle and it was more than five times as durable. “The technology was incredible,” says Mohammad Ehteshami, the former head of engineering at GE Aviation who now runs GE Additive, a new business focusing on the latest manufacturing techniques including 3D printing. “In the design of jet engines, complexity used to be expensive. But additive allows you to get sophisticated and reduces costs at the same time. This is an engineer’s dream. I never imagined that this would be possible.”
Q. Is your industry concerned with the weight of your company's parts and products?
A heavy part is an expensive part. Not only do you need to spend more energy moving it during production, but the end user also suffers from the weight. Every additional pound on a Boeing 737 aircraft, for example, increases operating costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars. For consumer goods, the lighter the products are, the cheaper they are to ship to retailers.
3D printing is the answer you’re looking for if you want to reduce the weight of your products. We already touched upon this in the part consolidation section, but bringing several parts into one isn’t the only way to put your parts on a diet. AM allows for substituting materials with lighter ones that provide similar or better mechanical properties, like using advanced plastics instead of metal.
Additionally, part structure can be optimized through iterative design and topology optimization. This process uses an AI-driven computer program to process hundreds of different design iterations. The end result is a part whose geometry provides the best possible physical properties while reducing used material to the bare minimum through organically designed elements and hollowed-out or latticed internal structures.
GE Aviation realized these benefits with its 3D printed aircraft engine bracket. By partnering with 3D Systems and Frustum, the companies optimized the bracket’s topology through iterative design. The final part weighed a staggering 70% less than original, while retaining all structural and mechanical properties.
Another example comes from 3D printing firm MX3D, which uses an ABB robot arm in its printers. In an amusing twist, MX3D developed and printed a replacement part for the robot that was 50% lighter than the original. The weight savings were realized through iterative design that turned the previously solid, rectangular part into a net-like shape that resembles an organic bone structure. This also ties back to producing spare parts yourself – now MX3D no longer has to rely on ABB to get spares and can instead print them in-house, saving time and money.
Q. Does outsourcing the fabrication of unique tools, jigs and fixtures, or custom parts cost you too much?
Uniqueness comes at a price. The limitations of traditional manufacturing directly translate into high production costs when it comes to complex, customized parts. Not only that, outsourced parts need to be shipped to you, so you have to pay for delivery as well. And if the part didn’t come pre-assembled, your staff has to put it together, further lengthening time to market.
If this is the case for you, 3D printing is the solution you’re looking for. With an in-house 3D printer, you can produce highly complex parts at a very low cost in your own facility. Not only will you save in production and shipping costs, you’ll also improve productivity with quicker turnaround times. Even if you’re not looking to get your own printers, using a third-party printing service will be cheaper than traditional manufacturing due to the nature of 3D printing and the generally lighter weight of the produced parts.
Airbus realized these benefits with the production of 3D printed parts to bridge gaps left behind by a new cabin layout. Previously, the aircraft company had ordered injection-molded plastic parts, but this came at a high price point. By utilizing in-house FDM 3D printing, Airbus is now able to produce these parts itself. Not only is the cost of manufacturing lower, but the company says it could also optimize the parts without any additional costs. The parts’ new internal lattice structure makes them 15% lighter, which further results in lower operation costs for the aircraft.
But when talking about cutting costs, you might want numbers. One of the world’s largest interior automotive component manufacturers, TS Tech, partnered with 3D printing firm Stratasys to implement FDM printing to create check fixtures. The fixtures were previously stamped from aluminum. According to TS Tech’s tooling engineer Stephen Mollett, 3D printing reduced the cost of each fixture by 31%.
Similarly, Cooper Standard, a global manufacturer of automotive parts, paid $2,000 for each jig and fixture used to attach coolant hoses to vehicles, including production time and materials. By switching to 3D printing, Cooper was able to lower the cost of these parts by 30-40%. “We can now print jigs and fixtures for $500 or less, and turnaround time has been reduced to under one week,” said Ray Fulks, tooling engineer for Cooper Standard.
Q. Does waiting for prototype iterations to be produced stymie your team’s creativity?
Your team has succeeded in creating a potentially revolutionary new part design. Everyone’s excited when the design is sent out for manufacturing and then they proceed to twiddle their thumbs for weeks before the prototype product arrives at your office. Finally, they get to repeat this process over and over with every design iteration.
Does this sound familiar to you? If it does, may we remind you that AM was originally called “rapid prototyping?” A 3D printer can produce a design prototype in a matter of hours. Even very large components and parts can be printed in a day or two. If the prototype doesn’t pass validation, all you have to do is modify the CAD file and print the part again.
Depending on the printed part and used printer, your team could at best be able to go through two or even three design iterations in a day. Additionally, by using iterative design software, you can have the program’s AI breeze through hundreds of iterations in a few hours to find the optimal part geometry.
As an added bonus, faster prototyping means your team will arrive at the final, marketable design much faster. 3D printing significantly cuts back on the time to market, allowing you to roll out new products at a faster pace.
American automaker Ford used 3D printing in the design process of the 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500. According to Ford Performance vehicle engineer Matt Titus, the use of design simulation tools and rapid 3D prototyping “dramatically reduced” the time and money it took to develop the car.
“The most promising designs were printed in a matter of days, not months,” said Titus. “For example, more than 10 front splitter wickers were printed and tested, some with minute modifications to perfect their design, with multiple versions of parts simultaneously sent out for track evaluation.”
Ford is, of course, a huge company, but the same principles carry over when moving to a smaller scale. A simple desktop 3D printer will allow even one-person startups to quickly produce prototypes to demonstrate their innovative ideas with a physical product.
Q. Do you struggle to differentiate your products from the competition?
Today’s consumers have more options than ever when choosing which products to buy. It’s vital that your product stands out. For example, how many times have you walked into the toothpaste aisle at a store and wondered what exactly is the difference between all the same-looking packages? Customers who can’t differentiate one product from another may walk away without making a purchase.
If your business is facing this challenge, the design freedom that 3D printing offers is just what you’re looking for. AM is able to create geometries that are simply impossible through traditional manufacturing. Built on the printing bed one layer at a time, a 3D printed product doesn’t need to account for tool access, undercuts, or other such factors. The only geometry restrictions that apply are print size and minimum detail features.
Technology company Cisco wanted to create devices and products that would be more aesthetically pleasing than the usual boxy internet routers and Wi-Fi transmitters. Thanks to 3D printing, the company has been able to incorporate minimal Scandinavian design philosophy into its products, replacing rectangular, bulky designs with sleek lines and curved surfaces. This is partially also due to the rapid prototyping that 3D printing enables; if the original design doesn’t work, Cisco is able to quickly alter the CAD model to achieve the desired functionality while retaining the unique, marketable design elements.
“It’s inspiring to see what my team can do with what the world has always received as a basic black box. Designs like these don’t just emerge from a computer screen. Because design is very important, 3D printing is an important element of our product strategy,” said Eskild Hansen, head of Cisco’s European Design Center.
Q. Would offering each customer a personalized product give your business an edge?
There are two very good reasons to offer customers a personalized product. First of all, everyone likes feeling unique, and being able to offer products tailored to a customer’s needs and tastes is a great selling point. Secondly, some industries – particularly medical ones – require products to be customized to fit the recipient’s particular situation. Prosthetics, for example, must be precisely fitted to the recipient’s body.
AM enables companies to quickly customize and personalize products. Since the product exists only as a digital 3D model prior to printing, it’s easy to incorporate small changes, particularly cosmetic ones. 3D printing also eliminates the need for specialized tooling, allowing businesses to provide customizable elements at a low cost on a mass production scale.
There’s an excellent business case to be made for offering this level of customization. According to business consultancy Deloitte, 36% of consumers are interested in customizable products. Out of that group, 20% are ready to pay a premium price for a personalized product. If your business can offer even a small selection of predetermined customization options, you can quickly increase your bottom line.
On the consumer goods side, French audio equipment manufacturer Askja Audio created the 3D printed Origin hybrid amplifier. The use of 3D printing enabled them to offer consumers customizable surface finishes on the amplifier, such as a simulated leather texture.
“The use of additive manufacturing to permit clients to customize their own design is a tremendous asset. It also forms a great part of Askja’s unique selling proposition, as no other audio system companies have ever designed their final products with additive manufacturing,” said Askja founder Didier Kwak.
In the medical field, UK prosthetics company UnLimbited uses 3D printing to create its highly customizable, lightweight, and cheap arm and hand prosthetics. The company says the arms and hands can be customized both for size and appearance. Aimed particularly at children, UnLimbited has produced arms featuring the emblems, graphics, and colors of superheroes, football teams, and more.
Another UK company, Align Technology, produces the Invisialign brand of clear dental aligners. The company has been using 3D printing for more than 10 years. The CAD models for the aligners are based on a 3D scan of the patient’s mouth. Using 3D printing, the company is capable of producing 320,000 customized aligners every day. Align also says 3D technology allows the orthodontist to view the expected results as a 3D model and adjust them according to the patient’s wishes before ordering the dental aligner.
Q. Is your business concerned about waste, high raw material usage, or the environment?
Being able to present your products as an environmentally friendly alternative is a great marketing tool. According to GreenPrint, 78% of consumers prefer buying responsibly produced products. At the same time, by switching to environmentally healthy manufacturing, you’ll be protecting the planet.
But even if your industry isn’t particularly involved with environmentalism, reducing material waste translates into cost savings. For example, with a subtractive manufacturing method like CNC tooling, more than 50% of the used material can end up as shavings on the factory floor. Even a practically zero-waste manufacturing method, like injection molding, isn’t a solution when dealing with low production volumes. This results in creating more parts than necessary, wasting material and money on surplus inventory. In total, the U.S. Department of Energy says AM can reduce material costs by up to 90%.
Since 3D printing is an additive technology, it produces very little waste. 3D printers deposit material only where it’s needed, bonding layers together to create a product from practically nothing. It therefore doesn’t suffer from material waste like CNC tooling. It’s also suitable for low volume production, which gives it an edge over injection molding and other such technologies. 3D printing also uses less energy than either of these methods.
With some printer technologies – particularly powder-based ones – it’s also possible to recycle material that didn’t get incorporated into the product. You can simply vacuum up the spare powder off the print bed. Depending on your materials, you may even be able to grind up and reuse failed prints.
Finally, AM allows you to use typology optimization and generative design to maximize your parts’ mechanical properties while also discovering the least resource-intensive geometry. The result is a strong, functional part at a significantly lower material consumption.
3D printing materials provider Apium created a skull implant for patients with severe head injuries. Such implants are usually milled out of PEEK thermoplastic, producing a significant amount of waste. By 3D printing the implant, Apium reduced material consumption by 89%, while also slashing production costs by 73%. The 3D printed implant is also more durable than the human skull.
The Rogerie, a Canadian recycled products manufacturer, recycles locally-sourced plastics into 3D printing materials. With this approach, the company is able to reduce plastic waste in its community, while also recycling that waste into functional everyday products.
Q. Could changing the material of your products improve their functionality or your business operations?
If you’ve always used the same material for your products and it works, the idea of changing to a different material might sound pointless. But there’s always room for improvement, and new advanced materials can improve the mechanical functionality of your products or production line – even if it doesn’t seem obvious at first.
Many 3D printing companies and additive manufacturers are constantly researching and developing new materials that provide higher mechanical functionality than traditional material options. Some 3D printable plastics, for example, can be more durable or chemically resistant than many metals. Improving the mechanical properties of your parts, tools, or machinery makes them last longer. This can boost customer satisfaction and sales, or reduce downtime and allow you to cut costs on maintenance and spare parts.
Dutch confectionery company The Chocolate Factory was experiencing constant downtime with its packing machines, having to replace metal parts several times a year. The never-ending maintenance cycle cost the company a lot of time and money. 3D printing firm Visual First developed a replacement part from Nylon 12CF, a rigid thermoplastic reinforced with carbon fibers.
The new material is more durable than metal and provides enhanced flexibility that makes it less likely to break. Even if a break happens, the part will snap off cleanly and not damage the rest of the machinery. At the same time, The Chocolate Factory was able cut downtime from a month to less than a week with an on-site printer, and reduce maintenance costs by 60%.
In another example, Avignon Ceramics is producing probes for aerospace applications from 3D printable ceramics. Used to measure dynamic and static pressure, these proves are traditionally manufactures from metal. Avignon’s ceramic probes offer improved functionality, allowing them to measure air speed at high velocity and temperature – something metal probes are unable to do. Unlike metal proves, the ceramic ones can withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Celsius, in addition to extreme thermal shock.
So, did any of these questions apply to your business? If so, you should seriously consider adopting 3D printing. Whether you want to secure cheaper spare parts, improve your products’ looks, or cut back on maintenance costs, additive manufacturing will prove a quick ROI.
New printing technologies and materials are also being constantly developed. As such, 3D printing’s applicability to different industries is constantly expanding. Even if AM turns out not to be the right choice for your business at the moment, keep your eyes on it – it may soon provide you with exactly the parts you need.
Lead image source: BCN3D’s Sigma D25 3D printer (Source: BCN3D)
License: The text of "The Top 10 Advantages of Additive Manufacturing" by All3DP Pro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.