Efficiency
"When you think about traditional manufacturing," said Marangell, "you have to think about all the tooling upfront [as well as] the transportation, the storage, the inventory. Time is a big factor. You don't even think about the inefficiencies of the process."
Additive manufacturing changes this model, opening the door for new processes and new efficiencies across the manufacturing process.
For example, he noted that the long design process of custom tooling has been replaced with a totally in-house process taking hours or days rather than weeks or months. With a 3D printer, companies "can create the tooling before you even have the product," he said.
"In the morning you print your the tooling... and then take them on the product floor to test them [that afternoon]," he said. "Even if it takes ten hours [to print], it's a huge savings."
There are also supply chain efficiencies to consider, added Harouni. "Now instead of shipping a product across the world, we're sending data across the Internet. Rather than orders being manufactured in remote plants, the product data "gets sent to a local manufacturing center [to be produced and shipped locally]. This means lower carbon footprint."
In the end, the mainstream viability and the mainstream adoption of this technology has yet to be explored. The stage is set, however, for the potential "revolution" Harouni predicted. We will just have to wait and see how it plays out this year.
