Push Button Manufacturing

Until the other day my impression of 3D printing was that the technology was useful to produce prototypes but not yet at the point where it could fabricate anything very useful.

I was completely off base.

A fascinating article from the Economist about 3D printing, a technology that will transform manufacturing as we know it and have major implications for labor, innovation, consumption, and the environment...

The industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy—and society—in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.

The additive approach to manufacturing has several big advantages. It cuts costs by getting rid of production lines. It reduces waste enormously, requiring as little as one-tenth of the amount of material. It allows the creation of parts in shapes that conventional techniques cannot achieve. It enables the production of a single item quickly and cheaply—and then another one after the design has been refined.

3D printing has now improved to the point that it is starting to be used to produce the finished items themselves (see article). And because each item is created individually, rather than from a single mould, each can be made slightly differently at almost no extra cost. Mass production could, in short, give way to mass customisation for all kinds of products, from shoes to spectacles to kitchenware.