In Additive Manufacturing, Is There a Case for Separating Design From Production? AM Radio #25A

Design and production are inherently linked in additive manufacturing (AM). Principles of DFAM (design for additive manufacturing) mandate that a part’s design take into account the material and process that will make it. But does design need to live under the same roof and same ownership as production? Or is there an argument for letting designers, inventors and developers focus on ideation while other specialists take up the ongoing needs of production via 3D printing? In this episode of AM Radio, Julia Hider and I dive into this question and discuss the benefits and potential challenges of dividing design and production, as well as the customer’s role in this dynamic. (Bonus: In the second half of the show, we explore 3D printing applications for space.) 

                     

Transcript

Stephanie Hendrixson 

In additive manufacturing do design and production need to live side by side or is there an argument to divide and conquer? In this episode, we'll consider the relationship between design, manufacturing and customer, and then launch into a discussion of 3D printing applications for space that's coming up on AM Radio.

Julia Hider 

The AM Radio podcast is brought to you by the Additive Manufacturing Conference at IMTS. The leading industry event focused on 3D printing for production. Learn more at AdditiveConference.com

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Hello, and welcome to AM Radio the podcast where we tune into what's really going on in additive manufacturing. I'm Stephanie Hendrixson. I'm joined today by Julia Hider. Hi, Julia.

Julia Hider 

Hey, Stephanie.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So we have an interesting show planned. In the second half, we're going to be talking about 3D printing applications for space. So stay tuned for that. But in the first half, I want to have a conversation about the role of design and the role of production and whether those two things belong side by side, or if there's a case for keeping them separate and letting different people, different companies, different organizations even own these different steps. So I'm not saying like, let's get rid of DfAM, and forget that entirely, obviously, like printing and design have to sort of inform each other. But I think there might be a case for separating ownership and letting different people own different parts of the process. Julia, do you have any initial, initial thoughts on that?

Julia Hider 

No, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Just thinking about how things work. On the machining side of manufacturing when you go into a job shop, they get a part file, and they make it according to the specifications, they have no input into the design, and their only job is to figure out how to make it. So I think that's something that you see in other areas of manufacturing as well. And we can discuss further about whether that makes sense for AM or not.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so I think I would start just with like a 3D printing example of this. So Julia, I've been reporting on 3D printing for five or six years now. I've had a chance to interact with 3D printed objects, mostly on the like, postprocessing side, like I've done the whole, like excavate the parts out of the powder thing, put stuff into tumblers. I've never actually run a 3D printer, though. And, and that's something that you have done. So would you tell us about that experience?

Julia Hider 

Yeah, let me, let's not hype this up too much. But I think I tweeted about this once. But before I even started writing about any type of manufacturing, so more than five years ago, at this point, I went to the MakerSpace at the downtown branch of the Cincinnati Library to use one of their 3D printers. And I wasn't trying to make anything in particular, I just wanted to try it out. So I reserved a time slot on one of their printers. I think it was like a MakerBot or something similar. And I showed up with absolutely no plan or no knowledge of design software, or 3D printers. And the employees who worked there were super great. They helped me, you know, go on to Thingiverse. I just grabbed the first file that would print within the time I had reserved and they, you know, made sure that the printer was set up with the color of filament that I wanted. And they showed me how to send the file to the printer. And I actually brought the object I printed in. Do you want to describe it, Stephanie?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yes. Okay. So it is fairly small as maybe like the size of like a, like a USB drive, a little bit larger than that. And it is bright pink. And it is a little hippo, like phone holder thing. And it's got like a, like a ring on a keychain too. Yeah. It's very adorable. And this is, I think, a great example of what we're talking about today.

Julia Hider 

Yeah. So yeah, it's a little phone holder, a thing with a little keychain attached. I will say the print quality is not great. I've seen better things come off of cheaper printers before. But again, this was more than five years ago at this point. And I found this recently, and it sits in my office now along with all the other parts that people have given me over the years. So yes, I can confirm that you don't need to know anything about design to operate a 3D printer.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so this, this situation like this is the perfect like, kind of siloed example, like you didn't have the time or maybe the interest to, to design this hippo on your own. So you pull something off Thingiverse, the design is already done. Somebody else has done the work there. And then you are sort of the producer in that you're deciding what gets made and like what color you want it. But also like the library staff, they're the producers too. They're the ones maintaining the printer making sure it's set up right. Making sure like the bed is level it has got material and all that good stuff. And so this is a way that manufacturing and that 3D printing can become more accessible when you divide those things and let other people handle them. So your role can be part producer, but also like mostly consumer, you're the one deciding what you want to buy what you want to make. So let me tell you why I'm thinking about this right now. So we recently posted a story to our website about this company called Spokbee. The guy who founded it, his name is Matt Cameron. I think actually you met Matt, he stopped by the, he stopped by the Additive Manufacturing Media booth at Rapid and like I just happened to be walking by at the right time. So we stood there and had a quick conversation and exchanged cards and then we had a much more in-depth conversation on Zoom later that resulted in this article. But basically what he is, what he is launching, this startup company, it's going to be like almost an Etsy sort of platform. It's a place for designers to create their own storefronts, list 3D printable products and then when somebody orders something off of their website, Spokbee on the backend is not handling production, they're sending the production to the right person to make it, the right manufacturer. And so they've got some different partners. Like, if you order furniture off of their site, they work with Big Rep, because Big Rep makes like medium to large size printers. That's where the furniture gets made. They've got some other supplier partners like that they also work with some different service bureaus that are more like Jack of all trades. And the benefit is that for the designer, you know, there are a lot of people that have good ideas, there are inventors out there, there are like college students that have good ideas and might want to sell them. But a lot of these people face barriers to entry, like 3D printing is pretty accessible if you want to buy like a single desktop printer. But if you get to the point where your product really takes off, and you need a whole print farm, like suddenly, that's a much bigger commitment. And a lot of good ideas die just because somebody doesn't want to take on that responsibility, or they don't have the capital to do it or all kinds of reasons. And so this is a win for the designer, because they can just keep coming up with great designs, put it into the storefront and they don't have to be responsible for that and producing and like keeping up with the demand over time. It's also a win for the producers, I think, because they don't have to spend so much time like marketing their services and like trying to find products to produce, they don't have to make their own products, they can get into this system and then just make the orders as they come in. And then they get to focus on those things like printer maintenance, making sure there's enough material, handling the steps of the process that they're really good at. So Julia kind of carrying forward the show and tell aspect of the show, I'd like you to go to Spokbee.com and just describe what you're looking at.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, so I'm on the website right now, there are a bunch of different options for products that you can customize. There are a couple of different types of rings, there's a stool, like you said, for furniture, orthotics, dog bowls, like that have the rings inside, if your dog eats too fast,

Stephanie Hendrixson

Yeah, like the puzzle.

Julia Hider

Vacuum collector, and then stuff like flanges and couplers. And interestingly, scooter parts.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah. So everything that's on here right now, I believe is a Spokbee product. So as I was talking to Matt, one of the things he said was like this platform makes it so easy to bring new products to market. They figured why not launch it with some of their own ideas.

Julia Hider 

And the idea is that an inventor could upload another type of products here and it won't just be Spokbee that's putting products up on the site.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, yeah, I think eventually, it'll look more like an Etsy sort of thing where individual designers can have their own their own storefronts. But I want you to pick one of the items on here and just click on it like as if you're gonna buy it and put it in your cart.

Julia Hider 

Okay, I'll go with just the custom ring, the first option that's on there. So you can change the ring size, you can change the width of the ring, and then you can add text to it. And then there's also an option to select your different materials.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so there's one other aspect of this that I didn't mention previously. And that's customization. So a benefit to the designer, not having to maintain production; benefit to the producer, not having to deal with the designs, and then a benefit to the consumer, because they can make changes to the products where the designer has allowed, this is actually kind of, kind of a neat thing that they've done here. And it works because they're using OnShape, kind of on the back end. So it's browser-based CAD software. And one of the things it allows for is like parametric design. So a designer can go in and choose different parameters like the width of the ring, the circumference of the ring, and set like a range for what the consumer can then choose on the site. There's like a very complicated pricing algorithm that handles the pricing in real time based on how much material each product and your tweaks is going to use. And then what material you choose, obviously.

Julia Hider 

So this sounds like some other similar-ish companies that you've written about before. Can you talk about some of those companies and how Spokbee is different or similar to them?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so, so there are some similar companies out there and like none of these is really identical to each other. They're all doing it in, in sort of a different way. But others that, that we've covered, one is called Angled. It's an offshoot of Slant 3D in Idaho. They do a similar thing where designers can, can load their data signed into this store. The difference there is that Slant is like this huge printer farm and so anything that is going to be sold in the Angled store has to be printable on their FDM printers. And so they handle production directly. Another is Gantri, g-a-n-t-r-i, this is a California-based company that focuses specifically on lighting. So again, designers that have a great idea for like a table lamp, if it can be produced with Gantri’s custom printers, proprietary printers that they've developed, you can go into this store and Gantri will handle the production when, when somebody orders a product. Another example that I can think of, speaking of jewelry, a company called The Future of Jewelry, they make custom rings. It's an investment casting process. So they print the wax pattern themselves. And then I think they outsource the, the actual casting to somebody else. In that case, like you start with sort of a base ring design, and then you can add text and symbols from their collection. Or you can upload your own artwork. So the consumer can get even more involved in what the final product actually looks like. So in talking to Spokbee and talking to some of these other companies like I think this sort of model where design exists separately from manufacturing makes a lot of sense. Like it lets people specialize, it lets them focus on what they're really interested in. Like if you're a designer that likes to design lamps, and like that's what you're really into, a company like Gantri is going to let you kind of just dial in on that and you don't have to worry about whether a particular design is selling well or not, you can just sort of put your designs out there and make some money off of it and and not have to worry about maintaining a printer farm or, or anything like that. Things get a little bit more complicated if you're offering a custom product. But again, like there are solutions for that, there are ways to allow for consumers to tweak the design that you've already created and get exactly what they want from, from the producer.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, we've written about and discussed how 3D printing enables inventors before on the show and Spokbee and these other companies that you mentioned present a really different model from what we traditionally think of as an inventor. You're normally a person who invents a product and then part of that is figuring out how to make it. Rob Glenn of Maxwell June is an example of an inventor that I've written about, I talked about it in our episode about inventors. And because he designs and manufactures the parts, he was able to optimize the design for 3D printing, you know, he designed them so they wouldn't need postprocessing. Specifically, he adjusted the infills, so that the print time would be workable for his schedule. And you know, there are other benefits to like having more control over production volumes and inventory and being able to make design changes and reduce production costs as well. Going back to what I said at the beginning about job shops, they usually aren't involved in the design of the parts they’re making. But I've spoken with a lot of shops that welcomed the opportunity to provide design for manufacturability feedback, especially as volumes go up. So I think that's the difference here is scale. You know, the, the Maxwell June razor press, it's a production part, they aren't custom, it's not super high volumes. And you know, job shops are usually doing low volumes of parts. And the lower the volume, the less beneficial it is to spend time designing parts to optimize for manufacturing. But as volumes go up, there can be a huge benefit to design and production working together.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, that's a great point. Like there's an efficiency that needs to happen if you're trying to get to scale like unless somebody's ordering thousands and thousands of particular like ring design or like a stool because they're trying to like stock an entire cafeteria or something, there's not a lot of benefit or incentive for like the producers on the back ends of these systems to try and optimize and like get faster and better at any particular part. Because it's probably going to change. We're seeing a lot of folks in like aerospace, and some other like traditional industries right now thinking more in terms of part families. So like, every time I have a valve component that looks kind of like this, like this is how I think about it. And this is how I orient it in the printer. And I think that sort of thinking probably makes sense for some of these producers. But as you're saying like there's not as much need or or time really to focus on optimizing when you're operating like this, like more like a job shop that's executing orders versus like an OEM or, or an inventor who is developing the product and then also troubleshooting it and iterating and trying to get to not only the best design but the best manufacturing process as well.

Julia Hider 

All right, I think that's a good place to wrap up this part of the episode. Stay tuned because when we come back from our break, we're going to be talking about space.

The AM Radio podcast is brought to buy the Additive Manufacturing Conference at IMTS. The leading industry event focused on 3D printing for production. Co-located with North America's largest trade show dedicated to manufacturing equipment, the AMC takes place September 14 and 15 at Chicago's McCormick Place. The Conference takes a practical applications-based look at the machines, materials and methodologies being used to 3D print functional components, including both tooling and end use production parts. The event is designed for owners, executives and engineers, as well as OEMs. Involved in durable goods manufacturing. Join the Additive Manufacturing team in Chicago for a day and a half of conference sessions and networking opportunities. Find more information and register at AdditiveConference.com.

All right, welcome back. Stephanie, I want to talk to you about Artemis, but unfortunately, I don't mean your cat.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Oh, she'll be disappointed to hear that.

Julia Hider 

I know. But I want to talk about the NASA Artemis program because the Artemis I is supposed to launch on August 29. So it will most likely have launched by the time you're hearing this, there are some backup dates in case something goes wrong. So most likely it will have already launched by the time you're hearing this, but in case you're not familiar Artemis is a NASA program with the ultimate goal of sending humans back to the moon and exploring the possibilities of a sustained human presence on the moon. So this is the first mission of the whole program. And according to NASA, the goal for Artemis I is to demonstrate Orion the space capsule system’s in-space flight and test the reentry, descent, splashdown and recovery prior to a crewed flight. So this is an uncrewed flight, it's going to launch from Kennedy Space Center, orbit the moon for a little bit and then come back to Earth. And this is a big deal because this is the first time NASA will be launching the Space Launch System rocket, which is the most powerful NASA rocket to date. And the Orion spacecraft, both the SLS and the Orion capsule have 3D printed parts. And we can discuss those a little bit later in the segment.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so I've been following Artemis, like I think a lot of people have. It's really exciting to think that we're gonna go back to the moon. And we're gonna do some different things on the moon than we have previously, like actually, maybe building habitats and trying to use the moon's resources in different ways. So I think this is a really timely moment to be talking about 3D printing in space, not only for things like Artemis that are on their way to space and things that are already out there, but to give a little bit of a futuristic look at how 3D printing might be used in the future. So earlier this year, I sat in on the Excellence in Space seminar, hat tip to additive industries for organizing that, it was a virtual event, about a half day or so of different presentations. And it was super interesting, just all different ways that additive manufacturing, and space applications go together.

Julia Hider 

Yeah. And from this event, you put out an article with six reasons space exploration will need additive manufacturing. So do you want to, you know, go through this listicle and discuss some of the examples?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, sure. My very first example is really appropriate, getting vehicles to space. So that's exactly what we're seeing with Artemis right now. Additive manufacturing is allowing for assemblies to be consolidated, which means you, you have fewer points of failure. We're seeing people introduce really innovative ways of like cooling engines and new materials. You know, one of the speakers at this event talked about how 10 years ago, there were only 12 launch companies, only 12 companies trying to figure out the, the way to get vehicles and resources and things into orbit and further out into space. Today, there are more than 320. And I think a lot of them are using additive for, for these reasons.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, I went back and looked through the Additive Manufacturing Media site and I found a couple of examples of 3D printed parts that are specifically on the SLS, which is sort of an unfortunately named rocket for people in 3D printing, because when I google SLS 3D printed parts, you just get selective laser sintering instead of Space Launch System. But anyway, I was able to come up with a couple of articles that we've written about 3D printed parts on this rocket. The first part is called a pogo actuator assembly. It's a vibration damping device that absorbs the shocks that are caused by blasts of propellant between the engine and the vehicle. So it's, it's an important part. And there are two components to this part, the pogo accumulator and the pogo z-baffle and together they kind of look like metal balloons, I guess. Aerojet Rocketdyne 3D printed these parts using powder bed fusion machines from EOS and Concept Laser. They have 3D printed and you know, both of the components. But just looking at the pogo accumulator, they've eliminated more than 100 welds and reduced costs by nearly 35% and production time by more than 80%. So huge benefits like you were talking about.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so another example that we've covered on our site, this was actually an episode of The Cool Parts Show, Masten Space Systems was working on the Broadsword engine. And so we had the combustion chamber for the engine here in the studio, and this is another case where like, this chamber would have been hundreds of different parts assembled together. They were able to 3D print it just in three parts. And by going to 3D printing, it actually allowed them to use a different material. So it was a metal matrix composite, basically aluminum that had this ceramic fill in it. So they got like all the lightweighting benefits from the aluminum material, but also the heat resistance and thermal performance from the ceramic. So those are some instances for launch vehicles. The next way that we're seeing 3D printing being used for space applications is to make systems that are going to be used in space. So things like satellites, rovers, the Perseverance rover that landed on Mars has multiple 3D printed parts and assemblies on it. And I think you mentioned earlier the Orion capsule that also has some 3D printed parts.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, there's another part from Aerojet Rocketdyne, but these parts are for the reaction control system that control this spacecraft’s roll, pitch and yaw. The original design was for the Apollo program. So it's pretty old. So they wanted to update it for Artemis, they were looking to reduce the number of engine parts and therefore increase the reliability, make assembly and service easier or decrease costs, and just improve overall part performance. So they also wanted to redesign it to use new types of rocket fuel. So they used nTopology to optimize the design, and they printed it on a Velo3D printer. So the new RCS thruster is 1/5 mass, half the size and 1/3 the cost of a conventionally manufactured version. And because of the assembly consolidation, there is a reduced chance of failure during operation, which is a good result.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah. So 1/3 the mass and half the size, like that's huge, because anything that you're going to get to space, like you want it to be like as lightweight, and as small as possible. So you can fit more into your payload and lots of really good benefits for making the things that we're trying to launch smaller and more compact with 3D printing. Now I want to get a little bit closer to the futuristic applications like things that we're seeing kind of in their infancy, things that are coming. So one example would be producing spare parts in space. So it's hard to anticipate everything that might go wrong, every tool or item that you might need. And so there are folks working on how do you produce things with a 3D printer in space that you might need. There's a company based in Florida called Made in Space, they've developed a couple of different printers that can work on the Space Station. They had a case study a couple of years ago, where they sent a wrench design file to the Space Station, and it was printed on the printer in orbit and was, was usable. So that's an example of like extreme distributed manufacturing where the design is taking place on Earth and the files are getting sent and produced actually in space.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, this was I was looking this up. It's a really interesting example. Because I've always wondered like, what are the effects of microgravity on 3D printing? And can you 3D print metal in microgravity? So they're exploring all of that, I think it'll be really interesting to see.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So yeah, there, there are challenges with printing in space that various groups are working through. There also might be advantages, though. So that's kind of our next point, like there are organizations looking at can we manufacture products for Earth in space, because it's easier to do that. So one example, this is not a 3D printed example. But like fiber optics, like certain types of fiber optic cables can be more easily manufactured in low Earth orbit than they can be on Earth. I've heard people talk about different things like like certain medications, like pharmaceutical applications, different types of chemicals, maybe can be produced more easily in space. And I'm sure we might find that there are some benefits to 3D printing without being held down by Earth's gravitational pull so much. Maybe we can use space to 3D printing’s advantage in the future.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, this was absolutely crazy for me to think about, like you could have a factory in space. Maybe in the future we’ll be going on shop visits in space.

Stephanie Hendrixson

Oh my gosh

Julia Hider

Can I call dibs on the first shop visit in space?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Absolutely. But also on that note, like making products in space, one of the big things that we might end up making is habitat, like places for astronauts to live and work. I'm not sure if we'll call them astronauts if they're based on, on the moon or some other place. But I know there are various projects kind of looking at this. One is called Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies or MMPACT. And basically what they are hoping to do with the Artemis mission is figure out can we print like a structure that astronauts could live inside using the moon's regolith? So we're seeing lots of construction applications here on Earth where people are experimenting with trying to use the soil in the location where they're printing, and this is basically taking that same idea and applying it to the moon, and maybe applying it to Mars and other planets in the future.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, this is another application that's just wild to think about. You could be living on the moon in a house made out of the moon.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

But yeah, like it all kind of comes back to like that whole payload question like it would be so expensive to ship concrete to space and so difficult, like, why not try and use the resources that are already there?  I think a lot of what we're seeing with space is going to just amplify trends that we're already seeing on Earth. So distributed manufacturing with sending files back and forth. And then like extremely localized manufacturing by using the materials that are available. And then the, the final point kind of along with that is outfitting those habitats. If people are going to live on the moon, even for just a short time, they're going to need furniture, like they're going to need a place to sit down, they're going to need a bed, if they're doing experiments, they're going to need lab equipment, they're going to need different instruments and things like that. And 3D printing could be a solution for that as well. Again, it's easier to ship raw material than it is to ship a completed table. And maybe you would find a way to use the resources that are already there in space to your advantage.

Julia Hider 

So yeah, there's a lot of ways that space is using 3D printing right now and a lot of potential applications in the future.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so we will put links to everything that we talked about in the show notes. So we are recording this before the Artemis launch, we anticipate that by the time you're hearing it, it will have launched. But this is going to be our last episode before IMTS, before the International Manufacturing Technology Show.

Julia Hider 

Yeah, we've been doing a lot of preparation ahead of the show. And it's almost, it’s almost here.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah. So if you are a fan of AM Radio, we're actually going to be doing a live recording at the show. So if you're at IMTS on Friday, come over to the AM4U stage, that's going to be in the AM Pavilion in the West building. At 3 p.m. on Friday, we're going to be recording a conversation, me, Julia and our colleague Pete Zelinski on our observations from a week of IMTS. So it's going to be a good opportunity to catch up on additive news you might have missed. You can meet us if you come by and that episode will be coming out shortly after the show. So if you're not there in person, you'll be able to hear it after the fact

Julia Hider

Yep, should be exciting.

Stephanie Hendrixson

So hope to see you there. If you like the show please subscribe to AM Radio on your favorite podcast platform, give us a five-star rating. Tell a friend, tell a colleague, a coworker, somebody who might be interested about the show and thank you for listening.

Julia Hider 

AM Radio is recorded with help from Austin Grogan and Seth Cooper. The show is edited by Alex Lytle and Stephanie Hendrixson. Our artwork is by Kate Bilberry. AM Radio and Additive Manufacturing Media are products of Gardner Business Media located in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Julia Hider. Thanks for listening.