p03 p08 p10 by design - netpublicationnp.netpublicator.com/np/n25211140/3d-printing-singles.pdf ·...

Shaping the futureof industry

A 3D printer in every home?

Three dimensionalby designP03 P08 P10

11/12/14#0291

RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

THIS SPECIAL REPORT IS AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION BY RACONTEUR MEDIA


1

i

f

t

3D PRINTING ONLINE: WWW.RACONTEUR.NET/3D-PRINTING P03

Overview

Fr o m s p a c e p r o b e s t o prosthetics, jewellery to jet engines and concrete

to kidneys, the question must be asked: is there nothing that cannot be 3D printed?

The global market is large and growing, forecast to reach $16.2 billion by 2018. In the UK, gov-ernment support is standing up to be counted, with £14.7 million an-nounced for a new 3D-printing hub in Coventry.

However, despite the fact it is now more than 30 years since Chuck Hull invented rapid proto-typing in 1983, for many, a whiff of alchemy still clings to the world of 3D printing.

Predictions for uptake among the general public remain the stuff of guesstimates. The same poll that found one in ten British adults were prepared to buy into the concept to the tune of £500 each for a 3D print-er also discovered four out of ten ad-mitting they had no idea what to do with one.

Business uptake, on the other hand, is on a clear and dramat-ic upwards trajectory, according to Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates, publishers of the annual Wohlers Report. “Inter-est and excitement surrounding additive manufacturing and 3D printing are at an all-time high,” he says. “Corporations, government agencies, researchers and others are investing in the technology in

ways not seen in the past. Many are trying to understand where it is headed and how they fit in.

“Some of the biggest companies and brands in the world, such as Adobe, Airbus, Amazon, Autodesk, Boeing, GE, Google, Lockheed Mar-tin and UPS, have made some level of commitment.”

COMMERCIAL ACCEPTANCE

A barometer of UK commercial acceptance, the technologically conservative construction indus-try is now engaged. An agreement announced between architects Foster + Partners, contractor Skanska, plus Buchan Concrete and Lafarge Tarmac, allows use u n d e r l i c e n c e o f p i o n e e r i n g 3D-printing technology developed at Loughborough University.

Simon Austin, professor of structural engineering at the School of Civil and Building Engi-neering, outlines the breakthrough potential in real applications. “It opens up possibilities of great variation in geometry and perfor-mance of concrete building com-ponents,” he says. “This is because the price of each one is roughly the same, unlike moulded parts where it is proportional to the num-ber cast from a single, expensive mould. Geometry is ‘free’.”

Rather than looking to 3D print whole buildings or houses, as tri-alled on a 24-hour turnaround basis in China, the consortium is focused

on components such as novel, com-plex façade panels for high-end pro-jects. Professor Austin is positive but measured in his assessment of roll-out potential. “By 2020, we should see examples of 3D print-ing applied in a variety of projects around the world, but it will still be niche,” he says.

On commercialisation, his cau-tious optimism is echoed by Mar-tin Clarke, director of the World Concrete Forum, who says: “The new consortium will open eyes to possibilities. Questions need to be answered, but the prize is very high and credible solutions will be found. I am not convinced, though, that 3D portable ma-chines will be on building sites rather than in permanent precast production facilities.”

CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS

At the other end of the scale, pur-suing localised and personalised distributed manufacturing, sits one-of-a-kind 3D -printing plat-form Kwambio.

Previewed at 3D Printshow London, the platform will allow consumers to customise and per-sonalise designer models, without file transfer, for up to 200 different products, from practical household items and pieces of jewellery, to art and decor. With a few custom clicks, users can bring a design to life in their own home, 3D printing results on the kitchen table.

With more than 1,500 subscrib-ers, 42 per cent in the United States,

already signed up to free beta-test the service and future user-fees es-timated at between $2 and $15 an item, chief executive and a founder of Kwambio, Volodymyr Usov, at-tributes its popularity to a combina-tion of customisation, convenience and security.

“No two people are the same and so it should be with your products,” he says. “The main benefit is customisation. Then, as we focus on owners of 3D printers, the second benefit is convenience. Thirdly, while you can have a ‘fac-tory’ at home, you need design skills to make something printa-ble. Those who design 3D models are not willing to post their files on the web, because of piracy. That’s why we consider security the third benefit.”

Also in the personalised produc-tion market, though centralised, is Makie Dolls of London, which 3D prints via selective laser sin-tering (SLS), melting a “dust” of high-quality nylon into the desired shape, layer by layer.

The dolls are finished manu-ally and, interestingly, the mar-keting points to a consumer per-ception-gap tension between DIY artisan chic and industrialised au-tomation, describing them as being assembled “by hand with love”.

In development terms, we are perhaps in the “teenage years” of 3D printing. Markets are yet to be made (literally) and there is a sense in which the industry is walking the talk of the consumer.

3D printing has the potential to shape the future – in factories, on building sites, in schools, hospitals and homes, writes Jim McClelland

Publishing ManagerNathan Wilson

Managing EditorPeter Archer

Head of ProductionNatalia Rosek

Commissioning EditorJim Woodcock

Design, Infographics & IllustrationThe Design Surgery www.thedesignsurgery.co.uk

Although this publication is funded through advertising and sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and sponsored features are clearly labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call +44 (0)20 3428 5230 or e-mail [email protected]

Raconteur is a leading publisher of special-interest content and research. Its publications and articles cover a wide range of topics, including business, finance, sustainability, healthcare, lifestyle and the arts. Raconteur special reports are published exclusively in The Times and The Sunday Times as well as online at www.raconteur.net

The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct. However, no legal liability can be accepted for any errors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior consent of the Publisher. © Raconteur Media

Contributors

Distributed in

Some of the biggest companies and brands in the world have made some level of commitment

SIMON BROOKE

Award-winning freelance journalist, who writes for a number of international publications, he specialises in lifestyle trends, health, business and marketing.

NICK MARTINDALE

Award-winning freelance journalist and editor, he contributes regularly to national business media and trade press, specialising in HR and workplace issues.

JIM McCLELLAND

Sustainable futurist, speaker, writer and social-media commentator, his specialisms include built environment, corporate social responsibility and ecosystem services.

CHARLES ORTON-JONES

Former Professional Publishers Association Business Journalist of the Year, he was editor-at-large of LondonlovesBusiness.com and editor of EuroBusiness magazine.

MIKE SCOTT

Freelance journalist, specialising in environment and business, he writes regularly for the Financial Times, The Guardian, Forbes and 2degrees Network.

FLEMMICH WEBB

Freelance journalist, contributing to publications including The Guardian and National Geographic, he specialises in sustainable business and environmental issues.

JIM WOODCOCK

Group editor and conference director at TCT + Personalize, he specialises in 3D printing and additive manufacturing product development.

SHAPING UP TO THE FUTURE

Image: Getty

Source: CCS Insight

93%global rise forecast in 3D printer sales for 2014

100% growth in 3D printer shipments forecast every year until 2018

Source: Gartner

$16.2bnglobal 3D-printing market forecast for 2018

Source: Canalys

Published in association with

The 3D PrintingAssociation

P04 RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

3D PRINTING11/12/14EDITION #0291

Manufacturing

Research by CCS Insight suggests the 3D-printing market will grow from

$1.15 billion in 2013 to $4.8 billion in 2018, with industrial applications accounting for three quarters of rev-enue by then.

Salome Galjaard, a senior de-signer at engineering consultancy Arup, says the past year has seen a shift away from the hype around consumer usage towards a greater consideration of how 3D printing – or additive manufacturing – can be used in industrial applications.

“It can have a huge impact on everything from the design process to production, storage, installation and recycling,” she says. “It could allow engineers to make things we weren’t able to produce before, using amazing optimisation techniques. Storage and transport can become cheaper, as products can be created on site, and even installation could be easier if the function of multiple products is integrated in one.”

The potential is such that the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, has now made additive manu-facturing one of its key areas for in-vestment and is currently financing 18 projects at a cost of £17 million, designed to accelerate its take-up in real-life scenarios.

“These focus on a variety of chal-lenges, some aimed at improving

the core additive manufacturing process itself to make it faster, and produce parts with better and more consistent material proper-ties. While others are concerned with what issues should be ad-dressed before you start the build process or after you’ve finished it,” says Robin Wilson, lead technolo-gist in high-value manufacturing, at Innovate UK.

FINISHED PRODUCTS

Already there are cases where additive manufacturing is having an impact, particularly in sectors such as aerospace, healthcare and the automotive sector. While some are using the technique to develop prototypes, others have started pro-ducing finished goods which cut out multiple tiers – and costs – associ-ated with traditional supply chains.

Shoes By Bryan uses 3D print-ing technology to manufacture eco-friendly shoes and founder Bryan Oknyansky, who is also a lecturer at Regent’s University London, believes over the next five years this could challenge the tradi-tional mass-manufacturing model. “Whereas contemporary manu-facturing models require scale and standardised design to produce high volumes of products, the new man-ufacturer is poised for one-off or small-batch production, depending

NOW 3D PRINTERS ARE PRODUCING FACTORY GOODS

When most people think of 3D printing, they may consider prototyping or creating products in the comfort of their own home, yet the real potential lies in manufacturing, as Nick Martindale reports

organisations set up their supply chains, says Hans- Georg Kalten-brunner, vice president, manufac-turing strategy, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at supply chain soft-ware business JDA, with businesses able to position local manufactur-ing centres closer to key markets. “There is also an opportunity for smaller companies, which will be able to service markets in far-flung locations without expensive facili-ties or networks, allowing them to compete with bigger companies and offer consumers choice,” he adds.

REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE

This could see suppliers offering manufacturing as a service, giving them access to a repair and main-tenance market which they cur-rently ignore, says Antony Bourne, global manufacturing industry di-rector at software firm IFS. “Tra-ditionally, cheaper maintenance services are provided by a separate company to the one that original-ly manufactured the product, but providing downloadable blueprints would be a relatively small step for manufacturers to take and one with a significant return on invest-ment,” he says.

Further down the line, the focus could move beyond the current em-phasis on “hard” physical products, says Kieron Salter, managing direc-tor of digital manufacturing firm KW Special Projects. “In a decade’s time we will be talking about digital fabrication not 3D printing,” he pre-dicts. “Many new technologies and products, such as augmented reali-ty contact lenses, clothes that have embedded sensors for measuring bio-health or flexible shape-chang-ing mobile phones, will be made pos-sible. And by 2025, highly optimised metallic parts on aircraft, printed electronic devices, including batter-ies and printed organs or bio-struc-tures, will be a reality.”

on which 3D-printing technology is used,” he says. “This new man-ufacturer also benefits from the capability to implement mass cus-tomisation; it takes as much time to make the same thing over and over again as it does to make a different part every time.”

Yorkshire-based slurry equip-ment manufacturer Weir Miner-als Europe is using 3D printing to manufacture some of its working parts, as well as providing sales teams with prototypes and demon-stration models.

“The traditional method is to make these patterns from wood and, while we still make the majori-ty of our foundry patterns this way, 3D printing has allowed some to be created in plastic instead,” says managing director Tony Locke. “The process can save significantly on labour costs as the machines can run with minimal supervision, 24 hours a day.” In time, he expects to produce more complex parts using 3D printing; the only restriction is the capabilities of the printers he has in place.

Harvey Water Softeners, mean-while, relies on 3D printing to make prototypes for parts used in its water softeners, helping it re-duce the time it takes to come up with new products. “It allows us to develop more complex design iterations more quickly and move from the test stage to a prototype faster,” says Martin Hurworth, technical director. “For a low cost, we’re now able to turn a concept into a working prototype in just three days.”

Other industries could also take advantage. Luca Corradi, manag-ing director for Accenture’s Ab-erdeen energy practice, suggests the technology could be used to produce parts for use on demand, in places such as oil rigs which could otherwise face shutdowns until replacements are delivered. “When 3D-printing technology is available on-site, spare parts can be stored digitally, ready for when the required part needs to be pro-duced,” he says. “Warehousing and inventory costs for oil and gas com-panies can then be reduced and the lengthy, expensive process of transporting parts to remote sites could be eliminated.”

In the longer term, the technolo-gy could have implications for how

When 3D-printing technology is available on-site, spare parts can be stored digitally, ready for when the required part needs to be produced

Image: Getty

Using 3D printers to manufacture end-goods and parts locally saves time and money


1

i

f

t

3D PRINTING ONLINE: WWW.RACONTEUR.NET/3D-PRINTING

Case Studies

The healthcare sector is already seeing the benefits of 3D printing. Turkish designer Deniz Karasahin developed the Osteoid, a 3D-printed ultrasound cast that emits a low-in-

tensity pulsed ultrasound to help bones heal. “Once hooked up to ultrasound for 20 minutes a day, it can help reduce the time it takes for the injury to heal

by nearly 40 per cent,” says Alex Chausovsky, principal analyst at IHS Technology. Other examples he points to include Project Daniel, run by Not Impossible Labs, which produces low-cost prosthetic limbs for war victims in Sudan, and the Cortex Cast, which uses nylon rather than traditional plaster to make casts. In the future, we could even see 3D-printed organs for use in humans, says Fred Hamlin, senior engineer in the medical technology division, at Cambridge Consultants. “Today these technologies make the front page of the newspaper; in ten years’ time they could be as commonplace as organ transplants are now,” he says.

AEROSPACE

3D printing is helping to create more efficient processes in the aerospace sector, says Robin Wilson, lead technol-ogist in high-value manufacturing, at Innovate UK. “Aircraft manufacturers have invested billions in developing the use of metal powders through this technology to make turbine blades, jet engine combustion nozzles and structural parts,” he says. Parts which previously required multiple components can now be created in one go. “For example, a fuel injection nozzle from GE, which was traditionally made in a laborious manner and comprised of 19 different components, can now be printed in one piece and is actually a lighter, better-quality component,” says

Sia Mahdavi, founder of Within, now part of Autodesk. The benefit is also being felt in the de-fence sector. “Although entire weapons have not been printed out yet, there

has already been success in producing landing gear parts for Tornado aircraft,” says Brendan Viggers, product and sales support for the IFS Aerospace and Defence Centre of Excellence.

In 2012, castings manufactur-er Grainger & Worrall invested £500,000 in a 3D printer to help it meet demand for small quantities of development parts for prestigious car

brands, including Aston Martin, Bent-ley, Bugatti, Porsche and McLaren. “Typically, a tool or pattern is pro-duced by direct computer numer-ical control milling,” says director

AUTOMOTIVE

Edward Grainger. “This is then filled with a sand and resin mix to form the intricate mould, often of many sepa-rate pieces of sand, known as cores. With the 3D printing, we can ‘print’ these sand cores to make the mould directly and eliminate the need for the tooling process.”Motorsport is making use of the technology to produce parts for de-velopment models, test and racing cars, says Kieron Salter, managing director of KW Special Projects. “We are also exploiting it to bypass very long lead manufacturing processes, such as tooling for composites, to allow direct manufacture,” he says.

Image: Getty

Image: Stratasys

Image: Alamy

3 SECTORSTO WATCHHEALTHCARE


1

i

f

t


Mass Customisation

The era of mass production started with Henry Ford proclaiming that custom-

ers for his eponymous cars could have any colour they wanted as long as it was black.

We have come a long way since then in terms of choice – Audi boasts there are four million possi-ble permutations for its A6 model, for example. Nonetheless, except for the lucky few able to afford bespoke products, consumers can get whatever they want, as long as they want what the machine makes, according to the consul-tancy Accenture.

For traditional manufactur-ers, economies of scale dictate that the greater the number of an item they can produce, the cheaper it is. However, the result, says 3D-printing consultant Joris Peels, is that “mass production is perfect for no one, so producers end up making one million copies of something that essentially sucks for everyone”.

It also leaves businesses with large inventories facing huge stor-age costs, along with the problems of unsold stock with high environ-mental impact, according to Sunny Webb, a consultant at Accenture.

But there is a move towards products becoming more custom-

ised and more personal, and 3D printing is playing a key role in that. “Mass individualisation is where 3D printing comes into its own,” says Mr Peels.

“Imagine a situation where someone could walk into a store, design their own product or cus-tomise what is already there, print it and take it home that same day,” says Chris Elsworthy, inventor of the Robox 3D printer. “Rather than selecting their item from a relative-ly small selection of goods, people could personalise it for their own specific requirements.”

Examples include companies, such as Styku that use 3D scan-ners to measure shoppers’ bodies, enabling clothing companies to make made-to-measure garments quickly and easily, and Constrvct, which allows shoppers to enter their measurements on its web-site and uses the information to create an online 3D model show-ing what the clothing would look like on their body shape. Normal,

which allows users to print their own customised headphones, has a slogan that sums up the ethos of mass personalisation: “One size fits none”.

The economies of scale are to-tally different for additive manu-facturing, says Phil Reeves, man-aging director of 3D -printing consultancy Econolyst. “It costs the same to make millions of ob-jects once as it does to make one object millions of times,” he adds.

MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Some of the most promising ap-plications of 3D printing to mass personalisation are in medical devices, because each individual is unique and needs products to reflect that. More than ten million people have hearing aids made us-ing 3D technology, says Mr Peels, and other applications include den-tal braces, false teeth, splints, or-thotics and joint replacements. The medical market is worth around $7 billion to $8 billion a year, he notes.

The process involves a scan be-ing taken of the relevant body part to produce a 3D model, which can then be printed to provide, say, a hearing aid, a hip joint or knee replacement that is unique to the patient and a much better fit than previous implants.

MAKING MILLIONS OF OBJECTS ONCE

Source: VoxelFab

10m3D-printed hearing aids in use around the world

52% reduction in returns for online retailers as customers use 3D-measurement scanners

Source: Styku

75%of the 3D-printing market's revenue is expected to come from industrial systems by 2018

Source: CCS Insight

3D printing offers manufacturers an innovative means of creating high-volume, low-cost personalised products, writes Mike Scott

A photograph of a man's ear is used to build 3D-printed customised earphones by New York startup Normal

3D-printed earphone

Design Power

Page 10

Mass individualisation is where 3D printing comes into its own

Image: Getty Image: Normal

“It is a huge help in all kinds of reconstructive surgery,” says David Dunaway, consultant cos-metic and reconstructive surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital. “It’s a lot quicker and, because we use artificial material, it means that we don’t have to harvest bone from other parts of the body. It has led to greater accuracy and a huge improvement in quality. The joints just fit so perfectly.”

There are even hopes that in time doctors will be able to “bio-print” new internal organs using 3D-printing techniques, although this remains some way off.

Medical and dental devices are the ultimate high-value, low-vol-ume markets for which 3D print-ing is best suited. But that does not mean the technology is confined to highly trained specialists.

An organisation called E-nabling The Future is using 3D printing to help children who need prosthetic hands. Many children are not given prostheses because the devices are expensive and, because children

grow quickly, they get limited use out of them. But now groups of tinkerers, engineers, 3D-printing enthusiasts, occupational thera-pists, university professors, de-signers, parents, families, artists, students, teachers and people who just want to make a difference are coming together to print prosthet-ic hands at a cost of around £30, says Mr Peels, who acts as a con-sultant to the organisation.

The hands go both to local chil-dren and to people the makers will never meet, such as victims of the conflict in Syria. “It is a perfect example of individualis-ation,” Mr Peels adds. “One kid wanted their hand to be purple, an-other wanted to have a Superman logo on it, while another wanted it to have six fingers. It shows how 3D printing opens up a col-laborative way of designing and producing products.”

CUSTOMER CHOICE

It fits in with the trend for great-er choice that internet technology has enabled – customers can put together their own music playlists, curate their interest on sites such as Pinterest and load up the apps they want on their smartphones.

But Econolyst’s Mr Reeves be-lieves personalisation will only ever be a niche. “It’s not the prima-ry driver for the development of the technology and historically it’s not how people buy or consume prod-ucts,” he says.

“The way people shop at the moment works. Just because 3D printing exists, it doesn’t mean people are going to personalise everything.” There are already non-3D printing opportunities to stamp your own personality on products. Nike, for example, allows people to create their own designs for its footwear, but only a small propor-tion of customers choose to do so, Mr Reeves says.

P07RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature

PA RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t


The shapie is like a selfie, but instead of taking a photographic self-portrait, you make a 3D model of yourself.

Here’s how it works. You go to an Artec Shapify Booth – there are currently ten in ASDA stores across the UK – pay £60 and stand inside the 3D scanner. Your scan is fi nished in just twelve seconds; three minutes later your 3D scan is ready to preview; fi fteen minutes more and it’s ready to print.

At this point, you can use a 3D printer to print off a one tenth-scale, colour statue of yourself. If you don’t have access to one, Artec can do it for you. The Shapify all-inclusive printing and delivery service means all you have to do is come back to the booth a few days later and pick up your statue, or send Artec your address and it will be posted to you.

And in case you’re worried that getting a statue of yourself made is a little egotistical, you don’t have to do it alone. The scanner can accommodate up to two adults and a child.

There are so many shapie ideas – the only limit is your imagination. You could take scans of your children every year, capturing their changing features forever in a series of 3D figures. You could scan yourse l f and your fiancée to make models of yourselves for your wedding cake. Good at sport? Why not scan yourself with your trophies. Or keep in touch with grandma by sending her a 3D fi gure of yourself. You could even get a statue of you with a celebrity – if one happens to be passing a Shapify Booth and has 12 seconds to spare that is. (Good luck with that.)

Commercial Feature

The 3D shapie:a great business opportunityFrom politicians to pop stars, astronauts to the Pope, sel� es are everyone’s favourite social media calling card. But already they are being overtaken by something better – the shapie

The shapie craze has already taken off around the globe, with booths operating across the world and new Shapify Booth installations planned for Dubai, Luxembourg and Japan in the coming months.

But as well as being a lot of fun for the people scanning themselves, Shapify Booths are a serious, scalable and profi table business proposition.

If you own a venue or can rent space in one, Shapify Booths will generate income, in a similar way to vending machines. Perfect for anywhere with a large footfall – shopping centres, airports, train stations, sports stadiums, theme parks – Shapify Booths offer something new for your existing customers and ensure they make return visits (to pick up their 3D fi gures), as well as attract new people to your venue.

Artec offers two business models. You can buy an Artec Shapify Booth outright for $180,000 and keep all the income you earn from it, or you can have the

machine for free and give Artec a percentage of the earnings –

$20 for every scan used to make a statue.

Shapify Booths can be moved easily to areas of maximum footfall, are low maintenance, fully automated and require no expertise to operate. The operator only has to press a button and a few minutes later the 3D model is ready.

They are robust too, built using Artec’s proven, world-leading 3D-scanning technology, which is employed globally in various sectors, including medical, automotive and industrial. Artec scanners are used in a wide range of applications, everything from scanning astronaut spacesuits and helping create special effects in the fi lm industry, to the manufacture of prosthetics and orthopedics, and the customising of cars.

To make it even easier to set up your own Shapify Booth business, Artec provides all the relevant software for customer relations management as well as order processing and tracking. It is the complete commercial package.

Artec is competitive too. There are other booths out there, but they are not as sophisticated or as automated and charge customers more – competitors’ prices for their 3D statues are typically four to fi ve times more. Artec believes it offers the best-value, high-quality scanners, scans and 3D statues on the market.

It goes without saying that the Shapify Booths are 100 per cent safe – they use daylight to scan with, so there is no radiation. And, of course, data protection is of paramount

importance. The customer owns their 3D scan and has the right to destroy it at any time should

they not want to keep it for future applications.

However , i t ’s these future applications that are the most exciting part of personalised 3D scanning and are why Shapify Booths don’t just represent a great business opportunity today, but will continue to do so in the future. Over the next fi ve

years there will be so many more ways for customers to use their 3D scans, including gaming where they could use them to create a character within the game, and online shopping where

fashion retailers could use them to work out customers’ exact sizes and recommend clothes accordingly.

Given the demand for shapies already evident across the world, it seems likely that there will be at least one Artec Shapify Booth in every city with half a million inhabitants or more. It’s a phenomenon and business opportunity that’s going to keep on growing. Don’t miss out.

For more information please visit www.artec3d.com

As well as being a lot of fun, Shapify Booths are a serious, scalable and

profi table business proposition A boxer and a one-tenth-scale fi gurine Image: Artec Group

The Artec Shapify Booth. Image: Artec Group

12 secondsto take a complete scan of the customer

15 minutesto create a 3D-printable model


1

i

f

t


Consumer

Let’s be frank. The consumer market for 3D printers is miles behind the industri-

al sector. Sales are small. Last year Juniper estimates 44,000 consum-er-grade devices were sold worldwide. You can’t buy one in John Lewis. PC World stocks one solitary model.

Which is on the face of it pret-ty odd. There is a lot of hype about consumer 3D printers. In terms of functionality, these little beauties are pretty solid. Most melt plastic filament and build up objects layer by layer. Make a chess piece or quirky jewellery item and you are guaran-teed fine results.

Consumers have lots of choice too. And the devices on the market look so fantastic they should be flying off the shelves.

The RepRap Mini Kossel (£425) can print largish objects in different colours, such as vases and screw-driver handles. You get to build the printer too and if that doesn’t teach the inner mysteries of 3D printing nothing will. The Cubify Cube 3 (£839) extrudes 20 colours and can print direct from an iPhone, Android app or special software for Mac or PC. It’s a cute little box, smaller than a microwave oven, and will look spec-tacular in the living room. The Mak-erbot Mini (£1,200) is superlative quality, with Batman-esque styling. The Printrbot Simple Maker (£372) is astoundingly cheap.

So let’s get one thing clear. In terms of price, looks and branding, the cur-rent crop of printers is affordable, workable and usable. In that case, why is there such hesitancy in the in-dustry about the consumer market?

Two reasons. The first is that us-ing consumer printers isn’t simple. Crikey, using normal printers isn’t always simple, as anyone staring at a flashing message “Load Error 13” will know. The industry knows that for something to appeal to all con-sumers, not just the hardcore maker community, the devices need to be foolproof. Consumers don’t want to listen to technical waffle about filament compositions and file types.

The second reason is that indus-

trial devices are so versatile that the consumer range looks a little under-powered by comparison. The worry is that it will always lag.

The industry is acutely aware of these issues. The software issue is be-ing rapidly resolved. Adobe is updat-ing Photoshop to support 3D print-ing. Richard Curtis of Adobe says the current STL (stereolithography) for-mat used by most consumer devices is flawed, but there are fixes arriving.

“Because hardware and material innovation is progressing so quick-ly, this format is quickly becoming out of date for these more advanced machines,” says Mr Curtis. “The STL format does not support any colour in its definition or any secu-rity and both of these attributes are becoming more important in today’s world, particularly for the creative community as well as businesses and service providers.”

NEW COMMERCIAL ERA

Adobe Photoshop will read and write in Universal 3D, part of the 3D PDF. This can be locked with 256-bit security. Sounds like a small step, but it is the sort of progress needed to take the industry into the new com-mercial era.

Computer-aided design (CAD) software makers are trying to do their bit. Autodesk is the creator of one of the world’s foremost packag-es, AutoCAD. The firm is about to launch its own 3D printer, and more importantly has created Spark, an online marketplace for sharing open-sourced 3D hardware and product designs. Even its new printer will be entirely open source. Rival makers will be able to see the designs and use them. Why would Autodesk do this? Autodesk maker advocate Jesse Har-rington Au says: “The bigger the 3D market the better for us. We haven’t figured out how to make money from this, but we figured that, if we open up the consumer market to 3D, then that can only help us a company.”

Even if the technical solutions are there, consumers will still need to know what they can make. This isn’t clear, worries Chris Elsworthy,

founder of the Robox 3D printer (£850), who says: “The accepted wisdom is that consumers will em-brace 3D printing when printers are relatively cheap and very easy to use. In this case, as in many others, the accepted wisdom is wrong.

“The price of 3D printers has already plummeted and ‘plug-and-

print’ models like Robox are already available. In fact, the real problem for the industry is that consumers don’t know what they would do with a 3D printer. Time and again at trade shows the first question poten-tial buyers ask me is ‘What would I print with it?’ Rather than focusing on the technical smarts of individual

WILL THERE BE A 3D PRINTERIN EVERY HOME?Sales of consumer 3D devices are low and there are challenges ahead. But the consumer sector may just have sorted out its problems, as Charles Orton-Jones reports

machines, 3D printer manufacturers need to send out the message there are good reasons to own a printer and point to the fact that the blue-prints for hundreds of thousands of 3D objects are already available on-line, for free.”

One left-field future for consum-er machines needs mentioning. 3D food. It sounds bonkers, but is ad-vancing fast.

The Foodini 3D Printer (£830) is about to hit the shelves. It uses five capsules to build food, from ravioli parcels to abstract shapes. Consumers can load the capsules

The real problem for the industry is that consumers don’t know what they would do with a 3D printer

3D-PRINTING MARKET OVERVIEW3D PRINTS BY CATEGORY

PROTOTYPES

GADGETS

PHONE ADD-ONS

SCALE MODELS

FASHION

TOYS

REPLACEMENTS

DIY

38%

27%

12%

11%

7%

2%

2%

1%Source: 3D Hubs, November 2013

GLOBAL 3D-PRINTING MARKET FORECASTS TO 2018

$2.5bn

2013 2014

$3.8bn

45.7% Total compound annual growth rate (2013-18)

15

10

5

0


1

i

f

t


Consumer Outlook

Continued governmental support, coupled with the UK’s existing engineering capabilities, should see 3D printing become a central manufacturing technology, as Jim Woodcock reports

RISE AND RISEOF 3D PRINTING

In reality “3D printing ” is an umbrella term that refers to tens of widely

differing technologies, processing hundreds of materials for thousands of applications. Tracking such a di-verse set of tools poses some chal-lenges, but the overall trend has been, and continues to be, one of significant growth. By splitting the industry into non-professional and professional sectors, two distinct stories come to the fore and the term “additive manufacturing” be-comes important.

For the consumer getting access to 3D-printed parts by owning and running your own 3D printer is an increasingly viable option as pric-es tumble and usability increases. It’s still not an option for the faint hearted as a significant amount of skill is required in the digital design, file processing and finally printing of a part. Downloading content to print at home is more accessible and many repositories – cubify.com, thingi-verse.com, youmagine.com – cater for this market.

According to the Wohlers Report 2013, growth in the home 3D-print-er market averaged 346 per cent each year from 2008 through 2011. In 2012, the increase cooled sig-nificantly to an estimated 46.3 per cent, though this growth rate is still exceptional in the hardware sector.

Many services now exist that run professional 3D printers, normally out of reach of the average consum-er, and make them available through sophisticated online portals. With this route anyone has the ability to have parts printed in materials such as bronze, sterling silver and even solid gold. Shapeways, i.materialise and Sculpteo all operate variations on this model, substantially increas-ing the possibilities for non-profes-sional users and reducing the barri-er to adoption.

Another emerging trend is the use of networks of home 3D printers to

have parts produced locally, con-trolled through a central online hub. This system is increasingly opening up the consumer-to-business model, whereby users of 3D printers in their homes are supplying parts to enter-prises in a complete reversal of the normal process.

For the professional side of the industry, growth is anticipated from nearly all existing sectors and from new applications coming online. Historically, prototyping applications have dominated 3D printing use in industry. For near-ly 30 years, 3D-printed parts have been used in the development of everything from mobile phones to cars. Today the major shift is to-wards using the 3D-printed parts themselves in the final product, opening up options of customisa-tion and design freedom like never before. Use of 3D printing in this space is often referred to as addi-tive manufacturing, though the terms are becoming increasingly interchangeable.

3D printing is already changing lives in the healthcare sector where the ability to create complex organic shapes as one-off parts is key to per-sonalised treatment. Prosthetics, im-plants and tools that help surgeons can be created as one-offs, com-pletely personalised to the patient.

Growth for this sector is anticipated to be high as materials suitable for use in the body are developed.

The UK has a relatively well-es-tablished additive-manufacturing and 3D-printing market with esti-mates around 4 per cent of the global total. Government-backed research in both the public and private sectors is healthy, though with 38 per cent of market share, the United States is leading the development and uptake of the technologies.

Users of 3D printers in their

homes are supplying parts to enterprises in a complete reversal of the normal process

with their own ingredients or buy pre-made edible materials. Found-er Lynette Kucsma says: “With a 3D food printer, you can make fresh foods faster and easier than you can by hand or with any other kitchen appliance.

MAKING 3D FOOD

“Note that our proposition is not to say that everything you eat should be 3D printed, just like everything you eat now doesn’t come out of an oven. But think about your favourite packaged foods that you buy, that if you were to make by hand would

require forming, shaping or layering, from simple pretzels or breadsticks, to ravioli. That’s where 3D food printers shine.”

Three academics at London South Bank University, Susana Soares, Andrew Forkes and Dr Ken Spears, are working on in-sect-based 3D foods. Ms Soares says: “The foods are made by dry-ing and then grinding insects into a fine powder. The resulting ‘flour’ is then mixed with other food prod-ucts, such as icing butter, choco-late, spices and cream cheese, to form the right consistency.” Her

reason? “As the population grows, insects will be a solution to some food problems.”

Her collaborator Dr Spears adds: “Mealworms have proved to be quite useful – you can get a 40 to 50 per cent protein count. We have then been turning them into flour, com-bining that with a fondant paste and using it in a 3D printer.”

Mealworm burgers printed at home? Why not? That’s the point about consumer 3D printers; no one quite knows what they’ll be used for. That versatility could turn out to be their greatest strength.

3D-PRINTING MARKET SHARE

Source: Visual Capitalist

Source: Visual CapitalistSource: Canalys 2014

38% 9.7%

4.2%

9.4%

US JAPAN GERMANY

CANADA

8.7%

CHINA UK

3D-PRINTING REVENUES BY END-MARKET

– PRINTING –

2018

$16.2bn22%

19%

10%

13%

7%

5%

4%4%

Consumer electronics Automotive Aerospace Industrial

Academia Military Architecture Other

3D printers Services and materialsYearly total across both

1.9%


1

i

f

t


Design Empowerment

In the suitably dramatic interior of the University of the Arts London (UAL)

students are working with clay, studying vintage copies of Vogue magazine, hammering away at jew-ellery benches and spreading out freshly dyed fabrics on worktops.

Housed in an old granary where the walls still bear numbering for various former storage areas, the university places a strong emphasis on the practical. Helping students to focus on how items will look when they’re actually produced, rather than simply thinking about them on the computer screen or sketch pad is key – and now 3D printing is making this essential el-ement of the design process easier and more accurate than ever.

The use of 3D printing is very much part of the curriculum, ex-plains Nicholas Rhodes, programme director of product, ceramic and industrial design at Central Saint Martins, a constituent college of UAL. “There’s a lot of interest among students in how it works and when to apply it,” he says.

The technology is part of a new empowerment of designers that in-cludes crowdfunding and a change in their relationship with industry. “Young designers are more like-ly to be partners than servants. It’s the students themselves who are really pushing the boundaries here,” says Mr Rhodes.

Charles Dokk- Olsen of archi-tects Shepheard Epstein Hunt-er, whose work includes schools, housing developments and offices, says: “3D printing allows us to pro-duce models with complex geome-try in minute detail that would be virtually impossible by hand.” In

one example, the firm used its 3D printer, which had a price tag of £30,000, to produce a model of a balcony for a client, which curves in two directions to form a wave around the façade – a difficult mod-el to create by hand.

“Our practice produces physical models for nearly every project we work on because we’ve found that this is consistently the best way to communicate ideas to clients of every age,” says Mr Dokk- Ols-en. “On our schools work, we consult with staff as well as pu-pils as young as five, and all ages are enthused and excited about seeing spaces in a physical model they can move around and explore over a table.”

TESTING IDEAS

In addition to illustration, 3D printing is good for testing ideas. To create Rock on Top of Another Rock, a sculpture for the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, consulting engineers Arup used 3D scanning and 3D printing to produce exact physical models of the rocks at one twentieth of their actual size, ena-bling them to explore different bal-ance configurations to find the most stable, and at the same time realise the vision of the artist.

Fashion designers are increas-ingly using 3D printing not just as a means of creating a prototype for review, but of manufacturing the

THREE DIMENSIONALBY DESIGN

finished product. It also allows them to work with entirely new materials.

“I feel excited when I test new materials within the printing, such as flexible rubber on which I could print colours or the transparent glass-like material I used for the crystal dress in my recent Magnetic Motion collection,” says Iris van Her-pen, a Dutch designer who worked for Alexander McQueen in London and went on to present her first col-lection in 2007 in Amsterdam.

FASHION AND ARCHITECTURE

Her cutting-edge approach to creation, merging science and fan-tasy, caught the attention of France’s Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and she counts Icelandic performer Bjork among her fans. Recently, she created the 3D-print-ed transparent, crystal dress in collaboration with Niccolo Casas, an architect whose work combines fashion and architecture.

In a far more down-to-earth con-text, designer Sebastian Conran, who is working with part-work and collections publisher Eaglemoss Collections to launch a weekly magazine that provides readers with all the components to build their own 3D printer at home, com-pares the satisfaction of producing something tangible offered by 3D printing with his childhood love of Meccano and Plasticine.

“It will certainly encourage more people to think of themselves as de-signers and to consider doing it as a career,” he says. “I can imagine a time in the future when your little boy might want a bit more track or a bridge for his model train set and you’ll just be able to knock one out yourself on your printer.”

People will be able to create something on their iPad and then see the finished product, he pre-dicts. Although, this will mean de-signers will have to focus more on

3D printing is transforming the way the creative industries work by presenting fashion designers, interior designers and architects with new opportunities, writes Simon Brooke

Intellectual Property

Page 12

People will be able to create something on their iPad and then see the finished product


1

i

f

t


PRINTING DRESSES AFTER A FASHION

Design Empowerment

their computer-coding skills.At the London College of Fash-

ion, jewellery students are using silver and gold in 3D -printing machines to create products. “We have students who are working on creating materials that are like fabrics with 3D printing; they’re inspired by what people such as Lady Gaga have done,” says Lynne Murray, director of the Fashion Digital Studio at the College. “At some point, they’ll be able to print bio materials and cosmetics such as face creams.”

However, Mr Rhodes at Central Saint Martins sounds a note of cau-tion to both professional designers and enthusiastic lay people. “Stu-dents get very excited about the idea of going from screen to 3D, but you still need good design skills and the technology isn’t right for everything,” he says. “When desk-top publishing came out some years ago, lots of people thought that we’d all become graphic designers, but that didn’t happen. You still need skill and training – and, of course, there’s no substitute for talent.”

Case StudyY

Z

Francis Bitonti is at the forefront of the 3D revolution in fashion. The architect turned designer founded his eponymous fashion label in 2007 and teaches at London’s Ravensbourne College in Greenwich.“When I first came across 3D printing it blew my mind and seemed to invert everything I knew about design,” says the 31 year old who is based in New York. “It’s been very much a driver for my creativity.

I use it the way that a painter uses paint. What I love the most about it is the flexibility. It allows you to work with very complex geometry.”Bitonti’s most famous design to date is a 3D dress for the burlesque artist Dita von Teese. Made from more than 3,000 moving parts each of which is 0.5mm thick, the dress required von Teese to climb into a corset that was then used to create an image from which the three-di-

mensional “print” was made. Black, severe and fetishistic, it’s adorned with more than 12,000 Swarovski crystals. Doesn’t something that makes his work so easy actually detract from his skill as a de-signer? Couldn’t anyone now do it? “I’ve been asking myself this question,” he says. “Am I put-ting myself out of job? It’s a bit like the situation with the music industry when people started being able to download tracks. You have to adapt quickly to the new technology.”Next year the Francis Bitonti studio will launch a luxury col-lection, introducing 3D printing into a sector where exclusivity, craftsmanship and high price are watchwords – and many of the things that this new tech-nology pushes against. Bitonti sees the irony. “This kind of manufacturing is the oppo-site of luxury because it’s about easy distribution and ubiquity,” he says. “I’m aiming at the millennials, women who have grown up with access to luxury brands. But they’re looking for opportunities to contribute here, such as co-creation.” How the big names of Bond Street and Fifth Avenue will react to the arrival of a new-comer who allows customers to “print” their own luxury clothes, bags and jewellery remains to be seen.

Image: Francis Bitonti


1

i

f

t


Intellectual Property

It’s a transformative tech-nology that’s shaking up the manufacturing world.

3D printing, or additive manufac-turing as it is known in its industrial application, has the potential to allow anyone with computer-aided design (CAD) files, a 3D printer and printing materials, typically plastic and metal powders, to make products and com-ponents wherever they are based.

But while there are many effi-ciency benefits, there is one thorny issue that companies, lawyers and governments are only just beginning to grapple with: the intellectual prop-erty (IP) issues raised by 3D printing. If the technology allows anyone to make anything anywhere, how can

companies, designers and inventors protect their IP rights?

Design rights protect the shape and the way products are configured. These split into four: UK and EU registered designs last for 25 years and require the filing of a design; UK unregistered design rights last ten to fifteen years and this is automatic as long as the design is original and not solely functional; EU unregistered design rights last three years and are also automatic if the design is new and individual.

Trademarks are effectively used to protect a company’s brand. Pat-ents protect how an invention, which must be novel and inventive, works. Copyright protects literary, artistic, musical and dramatic 2D works, as well as some 3D works such as statues.

In the industrial sector, existing IP protection law means that replicating products for commercial gain, by any means including, by association, 3D printing is, on the whole, illegal. Un-der patent law, for example, printing or disseminating copied products for

monetary gain is an infringement and the printer could be sued.

The same is true for design rights, although where 3D printing is used to make spare parts the law is less favourable for rights holders. Design features that enable one product to be functionally fitted or aesthetically matched to another are specifically excluded from pro-tection and can be copied.

TRADEMARK LAW

In terms of trademark law, it is an infringement to apply the trademark to copied items and sell them with it on. Copyright law protects items that fulfil the classification criteria – again, it is an infringement to copy something that is rights-protected, and not just for commercial gain.

In terms of consumer 3D printing, the copying of products is generally allowed as long as it’s for personal use and not for monetary gain. Under pat-ent law, for instance, it is legal to print patented goods at home for personal use. Design rights and trademark laws

are not broken if someone is printing a product for their own use.

Copyright law has recently changed. It used to be an infringe-ment for a consumer to copy an ar-tistic work by printing a replica with-out permission from the copyright owner, for both commercial and private use. Because, in reality, this was flouted all the time – copying a CD, for example – the government brought in the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 on October 1 this year. This means it is now legal for a person to print a copy of, say, an item of copyrighted handcrafted jewellery that they have purchased for private, non-commer-cial use. They could not print it off for a friend without infringing cop-yright, however.

Manufacturers are facing similar issues to those the music industry faced a few years ago. The advent of digital music made it simple to share songs with friends without buying them. Initially, the music industry tried to fight it, using the law to close down file-sharing sites and suing some individuals who were sharing music. This strategy became expensive, unenforceable and a public relations disaster, so the industry changed tack and

embraced new business models, which have made buying music for a nominal fee more attractive than illegal file-sharing.

While, currently, the quality of home 3D printing is arguably not yet good enough to replicate prod-ucts of the same quality, precision and durability as the originals, that time will come – in about ten years, according to some experts.

Legal action is starting to hit the courts already, though. In the

United States, Thomas Valenty used printed copies of Games Workshop’s Warhammer range and uploaded the files to Thingiverse, a 3D printing file-sharing site. Games Workshop won the case against Thingiverse, which had to remove the file, by complaining that Mr Velenty’s designs infringed its IP rights.

NEW BUSINESS MODELS

The manufacturing sector has a decision to make: whether to vigor-ously protect IP rights through the courts, as the music industry did, and risk annoying its customers or embrace new business models.

“With 3D printing, the problem is not so much about infringement of your IP rights, it’s more about the increasing competition,” says Ludmila Striukova, a senior lectur-er of innovation management at University College London. “Any-one can now become a designer and a maker. This is what compa-nies should be worried about.”

In this context, some see a sole or primary focus on protecting IP rights as misguided. The thinking is that, if manufacturers embrace 3D printing as an opportunity, they could head off IP infringe-ment before it becomes a problem.

“Businesses need to work out how to engage with private 3D printers in a way they can start to monetise,” says Adam Rendle, senior associate at law firm Taylor Wessing. “They could build additional relationships with their customers by supplying addi-tional products and services, such as CAD designs, printing and printing materials. If companies have a legit-imate offering that’s good enough, there won’t be as much incentive for people to infringe IP rights.”

3D printing or copying poses potential problems for manufacturers and designers anxious to protect their rights, but could be an opportunity rather than a threat, as Flemmich Webb reports

Home 3D printing of patented or trademarked items is lawful if it is for personal use

Under patent law, printing or disseminating copied products for monetary gain is an infringement and the printer could be sued

WHO IS IN THE RIGHT?

Image: Alamy


1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature


1

i

f

t

3D PRINTING 11/12/14EDITION #0000

One such customer is Munich-based MTU Aero Engines, Germany’s leading en-gine manufacturer. In May, MTU became one of the first companies in the world to create components for production en-gines using additive manufacturing tech-niques. The company, employing EOS hardware, manufactures “bosses” as part of turbine casings to allow the easy inspection of blades for wear and damage with a borescope when required.

MTU used to make these parts by casting or milling them from solid metal. Now it uses lasers to melt and fuse metal powder into 20 to 40 micrometre-thick layers, which are built on top of one an-other until the entire component is com-pleted. This technique allows MTU to manufacture complex components that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to make using conventional methods, and uses fewer raw materials and tools.

The company only produces small num-bers of borescope bosses at the moment, but once production of the PW1100G-JM engine, used to power the A320neo air-craft, ramps up from 2015 onwards, its output will increase substantially.

Other clients include Siemens In-dustrial Turbomachinery, for which EOS adapted one of its in-house machines for metal printing so the Swedish-based company could more easily and efficiently repair and im-prove components in its gas turbines. Conventional repairs required prefab-rication of big sections of the turbines’ burner tips, which need replacing over time. Additive manufacturing meant Siemens could remove and mend the damaged material instead of replac-ing the whole unit. At the same time, the technology allowed engineers to rebuild damaged burners according to the latest design, thereby repairing and improving them.

Bego USA operates in an entirely different field, but also uses EOS tech-nology. It makes dentistry products – everything from simple fillings to crowns, bridgework and implants. Due to a num-ber of factors, including the price of gold and competitive overseas labour costs, the company wanted to move away from traditional manufacturing methods and approached EOS to help it do so. Bego now makes its dental restoration prod-ucts using industrial 3D printing – EOS’s first application of the technique in the dentistry sector.

EOS’s additive manufacturing tech-nology is changing the way companies manufacture and replace products and components. Not only does industrial 3D printing reduce customers’ design

and tooling costs, its capacity to cre-ate products with complex geometries results in lighter goods that use fewer resources. In industries such as aero-space where weight saving is critical, this can mean substantial energy and therefore operational cost-savings over product lifetimes.

In a world of increasing resource scar-city, there are sustainability benefits to additive manufacturing, too. Relative to conventional processes, it is an ex-tremely efficient use of resources and, because it is powder-based, has a high reusability percentage. “The world has to become more efficient in what it uses or reuses. That’s a big boost for indus-trial 3D printing because that’s one of its core advantages over conventional manufacturing,” says Mr Jackson.

Although it is a relatively young mar-ket, EOS already has a wealth of expe-rience and knowledge, both of which it intends to build upon to maintain its position as the sector’s market leader. “Our focus is and will continue to be on the aerospace, medical and engineer-ing sectors – that is where we see the growth happening, and where we are concentrating all our resources, and re-search and development activity,” says Mr Jackson.

“Industrial 3D printing will not com-pletely replace traditional manufacturing; it will complement it and lead to numer-ous business opportunities. EOS is proud to be at the forefront of this new era.”

It started out as rapid prototyping – a fast way of creating industrial pro-totypes to guide product and tooling design. Now, 40 years on, industrial 3D printing, or additive manufactur-ing as it is also known, has evolved to become one of the boom sectors of the past decade.

3D printing is the process of building successive layers of, typically, metal or plastics to create three-dimensional ob-jects. But while it is the idea of printing objects at home – jewellery, toys, even chocolate – that has caught the public imagination, it is industrial 3D printing that is driving growth and innovation in the global marketplace.

EOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems, a privately owned German company found-ed by Dr Hans J. Langer in 1989, is at the forefront of a transformative industry that is revolutionising traditional product manufacture and design.

EOS, headquartered in Krailling, Ger-many, supplies industrial 3D printers, high-performance plastics and metal powders (to print with), software, and technical and consulting services to a wide range of blue-chip customers, in-cluding aerospace, medical, automotive and engineering companies.

Currently the leading direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) company in the sector, selling five times more industrial 3D printers than its competitors, and one of the leading players in the plas-tics sector, EOS’s growth since 2002 has been impressive. Gross sales have risen to €177 million in 2013-14, while staff numbers increased from 162 in 2002 to 541 in 2014. Ninety new employees joined this year, with the re-cruitment of approximately 100 more planned for 2015. It now has 11 offices across the world, and recently opened a new technology and customer centre in Krailling.

So how has it managed such sus-tained and vigorous growth? Technical expertise, a commitment to constantly improving its products and services, and its focus on a specific market seg-ment, says Stuart Jackson, regional manager at EOS. “We are an engineer-ing-based company with engineers and scientists at its core, plus we invest heavily in research and development – our standard annual reinvestment rate is 15 per cent,” he says. “And we offer industrial 3D printing/additive manu-facturing exclusively to high-end, blue-chip customers.”

Commercial Feature

At the forefront of reshaping industryIndustrial 3D printing, pioneered by EOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems, is transforming the way major companies make things

EOS’s additive manufacturing technology is changing the

way companies manufacture and replace products and componentsDental building platform. Image: EOS

1. Manufacturing procoess of dental crowns. Image: EOS

2. Boroscope eye. Image: MTU


1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature


1

i

f

t

3D PRINTING 11/12/14EDITION #0000

From product design studios, engi-neering departments and manufac-turing plants, to schools, hospitals and dental labs, the next industrial revolution has clearly arrived.

For solutions providers at the forefront of this game-changing technology, appe-tite for uptake of 3D printing in the UK is proving spectacular, as Andy Middleton, general manager, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at Stratasys, explains: “For us, the UK is the fastest-developing and largest market in Europe, showing 70 per cent year-on-year growth.

“The 3D-printing revolution really seems to have taken off in the UK, re-thinking the way people work and play, from corporations to consumers, manu-facturers to makers.”

PRECISION PERFORMANCE

Stratasys is a world leader in the man-ufacture of 3D printing equipment and materials that create physical objects directly from digital data. Its systems range from affordable desktop 3D print-ers to large, advanced 3D-production systems, making 3D printing more ac-cessible than ever. Its clients range from Nespresso to Nasa.

Manufacturers use 3D printers to cre-ate models and prototypes for new prod-uct design and testing, as well as to build finished goods in low volume. Educators use the technology to elevate research and learning in science, engineering, design and art. Hobbyists and entrepre-neurs use it to expand manufacturing into the home, creating gifts, novelties, customised devices and inventions.

All Stratasys 3D Printers build parts layer by layer:

Commercial Feature

Designed for a 3D worldWhether helping create coffee advertised by George Clooney or research for life on Mars, the 3D printer is fast becoming ubiquitous, wherever speed, efficiency and accuracy matter, says Stratasys

■ FDM (fused deposition model-ling) technology, known for its reliability and durable parts, extrudes fine lines of molten thermoplastic, which solidify as they are deposited;

■ PolyJet technology, known for its smooth, detailed surfaces and ability to combine multiple materials in one part, employs an inkjet-style method to build parts from liquid photopolymers in fine droplets immediately cured with ultraviolet light; and

■ WDM (wax deposition model-ling) technology produces finely detailed wax-ups for investment casting, particularly in dental applications.

Though the mix of material, geometry, finish and colour may differ with every user requirement, the essentials of 3D printing remain the same: precision, po-tential and performance.

INNOVATION AND ASSURANCE

Commercial clients are turning to 3D printing to help them work more efficient-ly and expand production possibilities, while still achieving ultimate final-prod-uct realism. Customers are seeking competitive advantage, demanding a combination of cutting-edge technology and high-quality performance.

Unique to Stratasys, triple-jetting technology is PolyJet 3D printing at its most advanced. Not only does this pro-duce the most sophisticated multima-terial prototypes and parts, but it offers surprising workflow benefits.

For mixed parts, it can reduce or elim-inate the need for assembly, even when building as many as 82 distinct material properties into a single part in one au-tomated job. Complex products can be prototyped with flexible, rigid, colourful, translucent and opaque components just by hitting “print”.

However, for 3D printing to deliver ful-ly on the promises of production teams made to colleagues in the board room, such technological innovation needs to come with a level of business assurance, says Mr Middleton. “Being ahead of the game is almost de rigueur for any suc-cessful technology company, but what the market wants is innovation, not risk. As the only company to have achieved material certification fit for the aero-

space sector, we understand the need for assurance, too.

“3D printing is a serious business, with big plans. This combination of in-novation and assurance is critical for in-vestors, and industry seeking a trusted technology partner.”

ACCESSIBILITY

While talk of the latest technology may be exciting for growth prospects in production terms, it does not tell the whole story.

The future of 3D printing is about much more than just kit. In effect, it is not so much the “what” that matters, as the “who”, “when” and “where”.

Access and availability are the mul-tiplying factors that will leapfrog the process forward, faster and further into the mainstream. As with many develop-ments in the digital economy, portals and cloud-based solutions will therefore prove global market-makers for 3D printing.

Stratasys is again in the vanguard of current developments in this connec-tive and creative space, via its Brook-lyn-based subsidiary MakerBot, which maintains the Thingiverse design-shar-ing community.

The implications of a widespread upsurge imminent in access and avail-ability are enormous for 3D printing, and will both complement and accelerate the way the world of work is changing as a whole, concludes Mr Middleton. “This virtual ecosystem for 3D printing will bring together the greatest number of people and diversity of global users, with maximum flexibility in terms of time and place,” he says.

“Collaborative working is the way forward for manufacturing, and the ex-plosion of access and availability in the 3D-printing industry will both feed and speed that change. We are all in the business of co-creation now.”

Stratasys is a world leader in the

manufacture of 3D printing equipment and materials that create physical objects directly from digital data

An agile white vehicle roams the Arizona desert, manoeuvring the unforgiving terrain as the wind and sun beat down and temper-atures swing from one extreme to another. Nasa astronauts and engineers are test-driving a rov-er over rocks and sand, up and down hills in an environment that simulates the brutal conditions of Mars.

To design such a tenacious and specialised vehicle, Nasa drew on ingenuity and advanced technology. About 70 of the parts that make up the rover were built digitally, directly from computer designs, in the heat-ed chamber of a production-grade Stratasys 3D Printer. The process of FDM technology, or additive manu-facturing, creates complex shapes durable enough for Martian terrain.

NASA CASE STUDY3D PRINTED FOR LIFE ON MARS

1.

2.

3.

Objet500

Connex3 with

coloured helmets

3D-printed model

of football helmet

Fortus 3D

Production System

Andy MiddletonGeneral manager, EMEAStratasys


1

i

f

t


Opinion

The ability to grow a three-di-mensional object by print-ing hundreds of micro-

scopically thin layers of material is already revolutionising some indus-trial processes and could well become one of the most dramatic shifts in manufacturing since the advent of mass production. Little wonder the government is investing so much in supporting the development of addi-tive manufacturing methods.

The technology is already in use in manufacturing, producing low-cost pre-production prototypes or mak-ing the tools and fixtures to support conventional manufacturing meth-ods, dramatically reducing prod-uct-development cost and lead times.

But that is just the tip of the ice-berg. The real impact of this tech-nology is felt when it is used to make end-use products. At the moment there are only a few examples of real additive part production. These include high-performance medical devices and aerospace parts. Howev-er, the possibilities are endless. We are already starting to see examples of additive manufacture of custom-ised dolls, footwear, clothes, food and even full-sized buildings.

It’s no exaggeration to say that al-most every field of human endeav-our, from how we travel, to what we make and use in everyday life, to

what we eat, to how we treat injury or illness is likely to be touched by this revolutionary technology.

The strength and integrity of components and products made by additive manufacturing often exceeds that of conventionally produced parts. Complex shapes and structures can be made with no joints or weaknesses. Imagine a bicycle made as a single structure with no welds or brazed joints, just a seamless tubular structure.

NEW ENTREPRENEURS

Additive manufacturing enables parts which are too complex to be produced using existing manufac-turing techniques to be made at the touch of a button. This is giving designers unrivalled freedom, un-locking their creativity and fostering a new generation of entrepreneurs able to explore new market oppor-tunities without the high barriers to entry associated with conventional manufacturing.

Moreover, it is possible to make a single part which is composed of sev-eral materials, each printed precise-ly where required to give the desired properties. This ability to design the material at the same time as design-ing the shape is a unique characteris-tic of additive manufacturing which will keep the best material scientists

in the UK busy for decades to come.But these concepts are for the fu-

ture and there’s still work to be done in terms of quality assurance, materi-als development and product testing, as well as increasing the speed of the additive manufacturing process to support higher-volume production.

It could be years or even decades before the full capabilities of ad-ditive manufacturing are properly understood. But in the here and now it is having an impact on some of the more mundane aspects of produc-tion, and it is here where early wins can be achieved in cost of production, time saved and materials not wasted. It is vital that industry exploits the technology currently available, as well as planning for the future.

Additive manufacture was first identified as a viable process back in the mid-1980s, but it is only recently that its enormous potential has be-gun to be understood. It started out as a tool for rapidly producing mod-els and prototypes of new products, but it has evolved into a method of producing end-use parts.

There can be no doubt that, even at its most basic, it has significant advantages over conventional manu-facturing methods. Unlike formative processes, such as casting, pressing or moulding, it does not require ex-pensive tooling and unlike subtrac-tive methods, such as milling, turn-

ing or grinding, it produces very little material waste, and there is virtually no penalty for complexity.

The driver for continued develop-ment of this exciting technology is coming largely from the aerospace sector. The industry is under enor-mous pressure to comply with strict-er environmental regulation, as well as the obvious requirement to stay competitive in a rapidly expanding market. This is driving the need for a step-change in materials and com-ponent design as producers strive for higher-performance materials at ex-treme temperature, reduced weight and improved fuel efficiency.

A solution is the use of additive manufacture for complex metal parts and, more recently, ceramic parts which can withstand higher temperatures.

GROUNDBREAKING TECHNIQUES

At the Manufacturing Technol-ogy Centre, near Coventry – an ac-knowledged world leader in additive technology and now the home of the National Additive and Net Shape Manufacturing Centre – we are do-ing groundbreaking work in this field with our partners from industry and academia. As part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult – a network of technology centres established by the government in 2011 – our role is to ensure that new manufacturing techniques are commercialised and exploited in the UK.

The technology has the capa-bility to save millions of pounds in product-development and manufacturing costs, as well as providing an efficient route to re-manufacture of damaged or worn

parts which would previously have been scrapped.

Developing any product is an expensive business, but additive technology can take a huge bite out of the most expensive parts of the process – prototyping and tooling. Low-volume tooling production by traditional methods is a major part of the product-development cost, so the advantages of being able to print tools which perform more efficient-ly using additive manufacturing are clear. And the benefits of printing parts on demand can be reaped if you’re working in a metal-bashing factory in the Midlands or on a space station orbiting the Earth.

The imagination doesn’t have to go far to see wider benefits in oth-er applications. The possibilities of the technology in our hospitals are already being studied. 3D an-atomical models are helping sur-geons plan complex operations, saving the NHS millions of pounds each year and improving patient treatment. The potential to print replacement organs may seem far-fetched, but additive manufacture is key to some major breakthroughs in tissue engineering.

Although these concepts may seem like science fiction now, it is important for industry not to lose sight of the current applications of a technology which is undoubtedly here to stay. The tipping point will be when additive manufacture moves into mainstream manufacturing, with machines capable of volume production. It will come and it rep-resents a significant challenge to the manufacturing sector – but it also brings limitless opportunities.

It’s no exaggeration to say that almost every field of human endeavour is likely to be touched by this revolutionary technology

PRINTING THE FUTURE WITH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Ask most people what they think of when they hear the term “additive manufacturing” and, if they think of anything at all, it will probably be a 3D-printed plastic curio from a digital design, says David Wimpenny, chief technologist at the Manufacturing Technology Centre

p03 p08 p10 by design - netpublicationnp.netpublicator.com/np/n25211140/3d-printing-singles.pdf ·...

Documents