3D Printing for Production at Scale

“Bridge production” refers to the initial, lower-quantity production of a new product or part that the manufacturer performs quickly. That is, production carried out now: before the tooling is produced, before the final process is engineered, before the part or product design is even finalized. It bridges the production gap between concept and creation.

Some say yes and we say no! AM and 3D printing are overlapping terms but not synonyms. 3D printing is the operation at the heart of additive manufacturing, just as “turning” or “molding” might be the operation at the heart of a conventional manufacturing process.

In a nutshell, 3D printing is one step in an overall additive manufacturing workflow that also includes design, build preparation, postprocessing, business considerations and more.

Importantly, “3D printing” does not describe just one type of technology. Per ISO/ASTM, there are seven different “families” of 3D printing processes, and a growing number of material and machine options.

Additive manufacturing has been shown to be a good option in numerous production applications. These includes instances where:

• A product is designed with a complex geometric makeup, especially internally, that often consolidates multiple parts into one AM produced part.
• Low volumes are produced, typically for niche products, though the quantities appropriate for 3D printing continue to increase.
• Goods must be personalized or customizable.
• Items need to be manufactured locally.
• Investing in conventional equipment is a barrier.

Additive manufacturing has been categorized by ASTM F2792 Standards into the 7 Families of Additive Manufacturing. They are:

1. VAT photopolymerization
2. Powder bed fusion (PBF)
3. Binder jetting
4. Material jetting
5. Sheet lamination
6. Material extrusion
7. Directed energy deposition and hybrid manufacturing

Source: 3D Printing Processes

1. Multiple materials
2. Multiple platforms
3. Location near customers
4. Postprocessing and finishing capability
5. Open machine capacity
6. Agility

Source: What Does Additive Manufacturing Readiness Look Like?

Unlike a typical serial production job where parts are made identically every time, additive as the production technology allow the customer to continue to iterate even as products are put into testing and into the market.

As described in this article, a production run of bezels for automotive sensors, for instance, saw the same number of design iterations within a much smaller quantity.

“Within 500 parts that we printed, they made three changes,” says Kyle Harvey, business unit manager for additive manufacturing at Extol. This is not just additive manufacturing taking over production; it is a different kind of production all together.