Manufacturing, in simple terms, means the process of making products. It is an industrial area that involves managing production processes, including designing, developing, and producing products to meet market needs. Manufacturing is also referred to as industrial engineering. Let’s compare the traditional and modern ways of manufacturing and analyze 3D printing services vs traditional manufacturing before any conclusion.
EDM Machined Parts from Hardened Steel at Amuse
So, what is traditional manufacturing? Traditional manufacturing involves taking raw materials from nature, such as metal or wood or stone, and turning them into finished products such as furniture or toys by applying different processes such as machining, carving, or glueing them together. This type of manufacturing is still going strong today because it relies on manual labour rather than machines and has been used by humans since its inception thousands of years ago!
3D printing is a technology that can revolutionize manufacturing. It will be used for everything from creating new parts for existing products to creating entirely new products. 3D printing is a way to make things quicker and cheaper and allows for more customized designs and materials that were previously.
3D printing helps reduce waste and increase efficiency by allowing manufacturers to produce products in smaller batches with fewer materials, so they don’t have to buy as much stuff. It also gives manufacturers more flexibility when making changes to their 3D models once they’re printed out—they don’t have to send everything back to the factory because they can add or change things on-site. Thus, we can somehow conclude that 3D printing helps any new product development faster than a conventional one.
However, the throughput of traditional manufacturing like Injection moulding is whoppingly still high at low cost with consistent results. Thus, estimating the quantity breakeven point is essential while modelling the business case with 3D printing services.
Parts are printed in layers, so they naturally have visibility of layering – layers are visible from the side and from above or around the print. This layer visibility at the micro level is difficult even if we use supportless industrial technology like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Multi Jet Fusion (MJF), Selective Laser Melting(SLM), etc. You can smooth the surface of your prints by sanding and polishing, bead, or graphite blasting them after printing at the post-processing stage. If you want more control over how much light gets through, another option is sanding and polishing after printing. This can smooth out rough edges on parts and reduce any warping caused by changing temperatures during printing processes such as ABS plastic or PLA plastic. Here traditional wins. Why? Manufacturing is planned in the tooling stage, thus, the quality of the tool determines your part quality.
Figure 1. SLA 3D Printed parts from Amuse
Time Constraints Triangle
Traditional here wins at speed. However, today technology evolved where 3D Printed parts have greater mechanical properties than past. And new materials are innovated every single day.
For example, MJF and SLS 3D Printed are directly used as end-use parts in specific applications.
In cases where Nylon carbon fibre, Onyx, Kevlar, or PEEK these polymers deliver equivalent strength to the metal.
Figure 2. Injection moulded parts with High Flow Nylon
The world of 3D printing services is enormous. It’s estimated that the global market for 3D printing will reach $20 billion in 2022, which is a 38% gain from 2015. Fascinating new technologies, industries, and concepts are emerging daily in various interdisciplinary research fields.
3D Printing Trend chart courtesy Hubs
The big question is: how can 3D printing help manufacturing? The answer is: that it can help move toward more efficient and sustainable manufacturing processes.
To conclude our analysis of 3D printing services vs traditional manufacturing,3D printing is an amazing technology that allows us to bring our ideas to life. It’s also a great way to prototype parts and create custom fixtures, but one thing that can get lost in translation is the surface of your finished prints. Several options are available if you want to hide or soften the layering of your 3D printed part. This technology is definitely a breakthrough and much futuristic option. As we are innovating at exponential rates unlike the traditional way where most of them are saturated, limitations will be addressed effectively.
The future of 3D printing is bright, with many different applications being explored. The question is: will 3D printing ever replace traditional manufacturing? The answer is no, but it does have the power to change how we do business forever!
Make with Amuse! Get your parts into production today.
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