Customization & Additive Manufacturing
Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001
I would like to bring in the few major topic on field of manufacturing in this article. Ahead of all we should be aware of manufacturing methodologies, I had already described about methodologies and applications of additive manufacturing technology.
Traditional or subtractive manufacturing offered a huge benefits at time of requirements and it’s still proving its impact in each corner of the world. The major drawback over subtractive manufacturing is ease of customization.
Customization refers to making things that simplifies the job/ work. Since the industries runs faster and wiser in order to cater the requirements of people, but due to modernization and supersonic evolution of technologies the chances of awareness towards the newer one’s are less. Here I would like to share a part of my experience, companies inclusively start-ups comes up with an idea to solve a social issue. The obstacle that they face at first is fabricating the design from concept, the product may have an untraditional way of manufacturing designed in order to cater and solve certain issue. So in order to make a prototype or first copy of the concept the company/person have to go ahead for traditional manufacturing, the manufacturer first will understand the concept and very soon the production starts. Difficulties will be seen and experienced once after the process gets initiated, the manufacturer have to involve multiple machining processes in order to give life to the product.
I would like to address the major manufacturing issues that gets effected for both manufacturer & the customer apart from Man, Manufacturer & Machine (3M) is Product timeline, Production cost, Material consumption. The customer will get the first copy/proto in hand but there is possibilities of change in concept and etc.
Additive Manufacturing is the corner stone to overcome such obstacles. It opens a numerous possibilities on field of manufacturing, whatever the concept is AM technology will adapt to the needs. The design file is straight away taken in to processing or slicing software and then it is fed directly in to AM machines.
Anchoring further more on part of customization in industries like Aerospace, Automobile, Electronics, Medical & Healthcare, defense, textile and further more are adapting the change in evolution.
One among major impact using AM technology in Medical & Health care industry is so called 3D Bioprinting. 3D Bioprinting holds a numerous advantages over AM technology, it focuses on resolving and catering global needs on part of health care. Overseas companies such as Organovo, EnvisionTEC and etc. Indian companies like Next Big Innovation Labs, Pandoram technologies, Indibio and etc are major key players in industries bringing a change in evolution of manufacturing with its awareness and technology towards health care industries.
Map demonstrates major 100 companies working towards development in healthcare and affecting globally on part of bioprinting.
Industries nowadays tends to improve their possibilities using latest technologies and reduce the complexity of manufacturing. Awareness regarding AM technologies is being spread on all geographical locations over the world, soon industries over all corners of the country will be adapting the technology in order to cater the needs.
Supporting to the rapid evolution in technologies there is huge upgrades coming in on part of software’s. Companies like Autodesk, Dassault systems and others are showcasing their maximum capabilities on part of designing and developing a product through AM. For example Autodesk’s well known Fusion 360 fits on par of mid to max scale level and make ease use of additive manufacturing technologies, Features such as generative design, direct to print brings in a huge space to adapt AM from hobby to professional levels.
A well known process of AM is “Design – Slice – Generate Machine Path – Post Process – Test”. It’s as simple if we are ready to adapt ourselves to technologies. Several R & D is still in progress in order to make the technology more affordable in terms of industrial applications.
Improvement in India’s ecosystem towards AM technology will open up a huge opportunities on par of employment and also will let us know more interesting possibilities about the technology.
