3D printing: The building block of our future

Imagine this – your car breaks down and you need a spare part to repair it. With traditional manufacturing, you would have to take your car to your dealership or the distribution centre, from where an order for the part would be placed to the manufacturer.

If you are lucky, your part will be there in a couple of days and you'll have your car back on the road within a week. But if your car requires an odd part for the replacement, chances are it would have to come from one of the manufacturer's central hubs, which could take a few weeks. In this traditional supplied-when-demanded approach, your car would be out of commission for the time being, and your manufacturer would have to produce the spare part in bulk to build inventory and then ship it to you.

The company would incur additional expenses to house the inventory and provide the shipping cost.

Now imagine the same scenario but with 3D printing in the process.

The service team in your nearest distribution centre would simply download the CAD file and have the 3D printer print it out. The service team would then replace the part and have your car back on the road the same day. The overall process is cut down from weeks or days to mere hours. You save time and the car company saves additional expenses.

Like this, 3D printing can be a game changer in manufacturing and supply chain for almost every industry.

According to Acumen Research and Consulting, the global market for 3D printing is estimated to reach 41 billion US Dollars by 2026. Even though it is still relatively unknown to most here in Bangladesh, the pace at which 3D printing, otherwise known as, Additive Manufacturing, is breaking out in the rest of the world, it is only a matter of time before it breaks big in Bangladesh.

What is 3D printing?

For the uninitiated, 3D printing technology refers to creating three-dimensional objects from computer-aided designs by successively layering printed material. Since the process involves adding layers on top of layers, it is colloquially known as additive manufacturing.

Anything you can design on a computer can be made into a three-dimensional object using a 3D printer, provided you can arrange the materials or the "ink" for the printing.

Similar to a 2D printer, the nozzle or the printing head of 3D printers plots the design on a surface using "ink", which is molten filament in this case. It creates a base layer on the bottom and then keeps adding layers on top of it, making a bottom-up 3-dimensional representation from the CAD file designed on a computer.

Hobbyist engineers, R&Ds of tech companies, and entrepreneurs use 3D printing to turn their ideas into realities by producing first-gen prototypes of their products right from the warehouse. This eliminates the need for a big manufacturing team in the initial phase and saves costs on big machinery and moulds.

As this technology evolves and becomes more viable, this process of production could change the future of manufacturing and supply chain, by reducing dependencies on traditional manufacturing and boosting inventory agility.

3D printing, despite many people thinking otherwise, is more than just a gimmicky printing technology; it has the potential to be the greatest optimising factor for streamlined operations and reduced cost of production.

By integrating 3D printing into their routine, companies can also take charge of the entire production process and ensure local production. Companies can save housing inventory and labour costs as 3D printing does not require a massive labour force.

Eliminating shipping will also lower the manufacturer's carbon footprint, making the production process more sustainable and environment-friendly.

Techniques and types of 3D printing

There are dozens of 3D printing techniques, each suited for a special use case. However, these techniques can all be categorised into three broad types — sintering, melting and stereolithography.

Sintering involves heating the materials enough to shape them into high-resolution items. Melting requires projecting a high-density electron beam or direct energy disposition that melts the material together and shapes the plotted design.

Stereolithography is a bit more delicate and uses photopolymerisation, a chemical process that involves turning liquid resin into hardened plastic using light to cure or solidify cross-sections of objects in thin layers.

The printing of the 3D objects itself has been categorised into seven groups by ISO/ASTM 52900. No matter the material or printing technique, every 3D print job will fall under one of these seven: Binder Jetting, Direct Energy Deposition, Material Extrusion, Material Jetting, Powder Bed Fusion, Sheet Lamination and VAT Polymerisation.

The use cases for additive manufacturing span industries, including automotive, aerospace, robotics, medical, consumer products and manufacturing.

Automotive

Car manufacturers have been using 3D printing techniques for spare parts, jigs, fixtures, tools, and even end-use parts for quite some time. Both luxury car manufacturers, like Porsche, Bugatti or BMW, and mass brands, like Volkswagen and Ford, are taking advantage of additive manufacturing to optimise cost and operation.

Automotive enthusiasts also use 3D printers to restore vintage cars by printing parts that have been out of production for decades.

Aviation

The promise of a durable yet lightweight construction has also made 3D printing a favourite in aviation. From turbine centre frames to custom-engineered prototype parts, 3D printing offers a variety of innovations for the industry.

With the combined efforts of GE Aerospace, Hamburg University of Technology, Technische Universität Dresden and Autodesk, The Advanced Additive Integrated Turbine Centre Frame was printed using a nickel alloy 718 with a one-metre diameter. It is one of the largest single-piece metal parts that have been 3D printed for the aviation industry as part of the EU's Clean Sky 2 initiative.

In contrast, it took almost 150 parts to build such a frame using traditional manufacturing. But with 3D printing, the frame was built as a single-piece component, adding to the durability of the aircraft. The production time was cut down from 39 weeks to a mere 10 weeks with the added benefits of a 30% reduction in mass and cost of production.

Healthcare and medical aid

In the last few years, over 1,00,000 hip replacements were done using 3D-printed implants by GE Additive. US-based Not Impossible Labs is leveraging additive manufacturing to produce prosthetics at a lower cost.

Other medical devices like hearing aids, dental moulds, surgical instruments, and even cranial and orthopaedic implants are already being made using 3D printing technology.

3D printing is currently used to repair damaged bone and cartilage but the promises of the future are even more exciting. Bioprinting, the process of printing organs using human cells or tissues, is going to be a significant milestone in the medical industry. According to several sources, we could very possibly see 3D-printed organ implants as early as next year.

Consumer goods – footwear, eyewear, etc.

3D printing is also being used in mass production. Adidas was one of the first to adopt it in the footwear industry with their fully 3D-printed midsole for the 4D range.

Eyewear is another mass market where 3D printing has had a significant impact. In fact, SmarTech Analysis forecasted that the 3D-printed eyewear market is forecasted to reach USD 3.4 billion by the year 2028.
The traditional approach to making eyeglasses requires curving a big block of glass into a thin eyeglass, resulting in around 80% wastage of material. This is where 3D-printed eyewear could save a lot in the production process.