They're Printing Guns And Drugs Now - Is Your Product Next?

3D printing will revolutioninze many manufacturing sectors -- and kill off others. With consumer and semi-pro use of 3D printers exploding, and thus driving the cost of printing manufactured products down, it's worth asking -- how will "cheap and easy" 3D printing affect your products and your industry? Will you have to compete with your best customers?
Aug. 6, 2012

A recent ExtremeTech post detailed how a member of the growing Maker community recently used a 3D printer to manufacture the main part (the lower receiver) of a .22 caliber pistol -- and then uploaded the schematic to a IP-sharing site. 

As the article points out this is not the first highly-regulated industry to receive the first hints of disruption via additive manufacturing (known colloquially as 3D printing) -- a geek.com article describes research into home printing of pharmaceutical medications

With use of MakerBots exploding, and thus driving the cost of rapid prototyping/manufacturing down, it's worth asking -- how will "cheap and easy" 3D printing affect your products and your industry?

The real question: Will you have to compete with your best customers? And, can you? 

Better to ask the question now, than when you've got a (metaphorical) 3D-printed gun to your head. If I were a product manager in manufacturing, I'd go check Thingiverse and see what homebrew competitors are spinning up to stick you up for your revenue. 

About the Author

Brad Kenney Blog

Chief Marketing Officer

Brad Kenney is the former Technology Editor of IndustryWeek and now serves as director of the mobile/social platforms practice at R/GA, a global marketing/advertising firm in New York City.

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