Thesis on Rapid Manufacturing

Hi,

my name is Richard. I am a major in industrial engineering at the University of Erlangen (Germany). Even though I lack the resources, know how and most of all the patience to build my own RepRap, I've been addicted by this Idea since I first read about it in a Magazine (Zeit Wissen). Since my interest is more in theory I convinced my logistics professor to let me write a paper about how rapid manufacturing will alter the supply chain. To get a start I would be interested in your opinion on some thesis... I know, that some thesis sound quite provoking (and represent not always my opinion), don't be offended I'm just trying to get as many thoughts as possible.

1. Spread of rapid manufacturing technology will soar in the next years. This is due to the expiration of the Stratasys patent (Could somone provide me the Patent# of this patent?)

2. There will be many commercial and (one?) open source products in the market.

3. Rapid manufacturing will stay the domain of enthusiasts for a long time. Even with a RP-machine from HP it will take much more than writing a letter in word and print it on a laser printer.

4. There are not many products making sense to be reprapped (at home). Lets face it, most products consist of many parts made of various materials. Even if you could produce all of those parts with your RepRap, you still had to assemble all of them whereas you could buy the same product for a few bucks in the next supermarket.

5. Producing some spare parts, minor products or hobby stuff once a month or so will not justify having a big, expensive (?) machine at home.

6. Open Source communities will push new products or upgrades for existing products and new designs forward. Access will be easy through a configurator wizard.

7. There will be local service providers which offer printing and assembling of those open source products (comparable with ebay-shops).

8. Some manufacturers will shift to producing core products which provide the functionality leaving the finishing to a retailer with a RM-machine. Imagine a light switch which comes without the plastics stuff, this is customised fabricated by the retailer. For what products does this make sense? Is there a market for such things? Do people like do customise their products or do they prefer to chose from existing assortments?

Hi Richard,

... some comments ...

1. - sure ...

2. - look at [www.fabathome.org] and [www.candyfab.org] - it's dort of open-source too.

And there are some other individuals and groups scattered worldwide, which are on the theme too ...

3. - maybe, time will show ...

4. - this will change with the evolution of home-brewed RP ...

You have many parts around, made from resin, which can be replaced or optimized.

I'm on experimenting with paste-extruding at room-temp, where the basis materials can vary from metall-powder to ceramics and all sorts of 'dust' ...

5. - it's a different view when one of your friends or neighbours can offer the service for ultra-low-cost ...

6. - sure ...

7. - sure ...

8. - this and other 'supporting services' as materials/filaments, pastes and such ...

Viktor

Hi Richard,

I'd be very interested in the results. The way this potentially disruptive technology will affect supply chains is an interesting discussion. This questionnaire started by me will also interest you: [forums.reprap.org]

My answers (tried to keep them short):

1. growth "due to the expiration of the Stratasys patent":
It might be useful to look at this view of all stratasys' patents:
[www.google.com]
The oldest one (most applicable to what we're doing, but certainly not the only one!) is about to expire October 2009 if it's 20 years from the filing date. I'm not sure if it's 17 or 20 years in this case:
[www.freepatentsonline.com]
If it's 17, the first two patents in google's overview have already expired?! Does the 20/17 years count from the issue date or the filing date? This is important stuff to know...


2. "There will be many commercial and (one?) open source products in the market."
The open source product may have many variations. One small workshop might specialize in making larger-size RepRaps, or one that works with a different kind of material. Variations will probably arise and more projects like RepRap will also be started (like an open source selective powder sintering/binding machine).


3. "Rapid manufacturing will stay the domain of enthusiasts for a long time."
Don't think so. It only takes a couple of people good at designing and sharing their CAD designs. Others will print those or adapted versions of those designs. I can also imagine configuration wizards to tailor a product to your needs.


4. "There are not many products making sense to be reprapped (at home)."
I think out of thermoplasts this is limited. This is also not where the highest value lies. First customizable photo frames (personalization sensitive stuff) will become more popular. Things you can't get in a store. If everything is 'plastic price only' then you can also start printing cups and dishes. If searching costs for the right 'cup' are lower because it's on an E-marketplace, then the RM'd products might gain share over the traditional channels (regular shops).


5. "Producing some spare parts, minor products or hobby stuff once a month or so will not justify having a big, expensive (?) machine at home."
I think a lot of hobby stuff (model trains anyone?) is pretty expensive in itself. If there's a rich (digital) part repository to choose from it because valuable to have such a printer. You could also print parts for friends who share your hobby. If you can sell idle capacity of your machine by shipping some 3D prints you can earn back your machine as well.


6. "Open Source communities will push new products or upgrades for existing products and new designs forward. Access will be easy through a configurator wizard."
Think so. Why not receive a notification if there's a part that you've printed which has an update? Those software update notifications already exist and are useful. Configurator wizards should make CAD accessible to non-industrial-designers... I see an important place for those too.


7. "There will be local service providers which offer printing and assembling of those open source products (comparable with ebay-shops)."
Yes, also see 5. This will save shipping costs. In a while, this will be in every city so you can pick it up along with groceries, eventually in every home (for simple parts, and more specialized production in every city or even country).


8. "Some manufacturers will shift to producing core products which provide the functionality leaving the finishing to a retailer with a RM-machine. Imagine a light switch which comes without the plastics stuff, this is customised fabricated by the retailer."
I can imagine that it goes like this. Through the non printable parts they will remain in control of the product. RP finishing will allow them to fulfill customer needs better. For things that can entirely be 3D fabricated: communities will design those, not necessarily the big companies anymore. In journalism, user generated content is exceeding professionally generated content. You don't need an organization to have a popular blog that better meets the needs of your audience than a certain magazine does.

"For what products does this make sense?..."
Especially products sensitive to taste (diverse and fast changing) for which it is hard to create many variations.

"Is there a market for such things? Do people like do customise their products or do they prefer to chose from existing assortments?"
A market, sure. Depends also on the cost of maintaining a wide assortment. Markets will open up there firstly but it will not stop there. Especially with more materials are possible, higher print resolution, lower cost printing capacity, etc. For some products that are now made out of several parts and for which assembly is now expensive, I imagine that those will become printable in whole, and much cheaper as well.

---

Regards,

Erik de Bruijn
[Ultimaker.com] - [blog.erikdebruijn.nl]

I pretty much agree with Erik. One quick comment:

RichardW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 3. Rapid manufacturing will stay the domain of
> enthusiasts for a long time. Even with a
> RP-machine from HP it will take much more than
> writing a letter in word and print it on a laser
> printer.

I think the adoption of RP will be a function of both demand and ease of use, but if demand is high people may be willing to sacrifice a bit of ease of use. Example: a few years ago the social networking site "myspace" was very popular. It had a pretty bad UI, and its pages were bland. However, it gave you the ability to interject HTML and CSS into your page to flavor it. I was surprised by the number of people I know that never knew anything about the HTML before but readily learned the basic tags simply in order to spice up their pages. The same thing may happen with cheap 3D printers and CAD software - if the demand is great enough, perople will put in a good deal of effort to learn something like that. There will of course be many others who would rather not, that is to be expected.

I think the greatest benefits of RM lay in the custom made, and the making of parts only possible using Free Form Fabrication techniques.

The RP process is linear in costs. Initial outlay is low, but part cost individually will be quite high with unlimited customization between part builds. Whereas traditional tooling methods are exactly the opposite. Those strengths in particular should be exploited.

This extends to such objects as say, a custom made Orthotic, an expensive and difficult product to produce traditionally, but trivially easy for a reprap. I've also seen such things as RP'd lamp shades with complicated facets, which look absolutely dazzling with a light bulb inside, the designs being impossible to make using even the most elaborate tooling.

proto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think the greatest benefits of RM lay in the
> custom made, and the making of parts only possible
> using Free Form Fabrication techniques.
>
> The RP process is linear in costs. Initial outlay
> is low, but part cost individually will be quite
> high with unlimited customization between part
> builds. Whereas traditional tooling methods are
> exactly the opposite. Those strengths in
> particular should be exploited.

To an extent this will always be true, a specialized machine is better at what it does than a general-purpose one. But factoring in intercontinental shipping and handling costs for the end product, injection-molding and the like have a more linear price/production ratio than it may seem at first blush.

Remember that through use of the internet, the person that produces stuff does not need to be the one that invents or designs the stuff. Nor should he be the person with the E-Shop making the sale. If he/she has a machine, the 'agent technology' on it could start printing once a price is acceptable. If the printing party is geographically close to the buyer, this printer will tend to be chosen because of low shipping fees (or even free pick-up).

---

Regards,

Erik de Bruijn
[Ultimaker.com] - [blog.erikdebruijn.nl]

I'm just trying to figure out, which pathway the concept of Rapid Manufacturing will take and what the timeframe is.

So the question is not only "what can be made?" but "what makes sense to be made" and "who can make it".

For as I know RM is already in use for medical products (batch size 1 predestinated for RM), very specialized articles/machines and some design stuff...

When I look around myself in my room, most things are made of several parts and materials and have a special finish but cost not much more than the cost of the material... So if most articles are available and cheap already where do I put Rapid Manufacturing with consumer goods?

The [www.rm-platform.com] releases a lot of documents. Medical applications are target #1 there. You can get hints and scientific papers there, though most of them might be about recent developments of what will become possible, not about the macro effects of RM. Google scholar has a lot of papers on the subject, I think.

---

Regards,

Erik de Bruijn
[Ultimaker.com] - [blog.erikdebruijn.nl]

Hi Richard,

look at the spread of 3D-CNC-milling over the last 20 years - there are expensive comercial machines (>>50000$) with high accuracies and throughput, but now even more home-made or 'cheap' CNC-kits are around, so 3D-milling or engraving is a 'standardized' common methode every interested individual with 1000 to 2000$ (or even less, i reworked an old CNC-robot for ~500$) can buy and use ...

With RP/reprapping this should be similar - in some years you can buy kits or ready turn-key systems all over the world for prices in the range of cheap CNC-mills too, so everyone can decide personally if he want additive (FFF) or subtractive (CNC-mill) or even both as start.

With time there should develop many groups with 'fabbing-core-competency' forming networks of productivity competing violantly with common commercial structures.

Maybe the highly specialized 'individual-fabbing per piece' would change our actual view of 'mass-product-market' and our sozial/commercial behaviour too?

Viktor

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2008 06:09AM by Viktor.