3D printing: lower barriers to trial production, welcome opportunities for development process reform

The price of 3D printers has fallen, the variety of molding materials has increased, and related network services have been continuously enriched. In fields other than manufacturing, the application range of 3D printers has become wider and wider, and the personal user layer has expanded. Under such a trend, “the time has come when anyone can start a manufacturing company. For manufacturing companies, 3D printers are a powerful weapon to enhance the competitiveness of existing businesses and open up new business areas. 　　 Improve existing businesses Competitiveness depends on ﹝1﹞innovating the development process, ﹝2﹞ strengthening the ability to respond to small-scale production, and developing new business areas relying on ﹝3﹞ providing manufacturing technology experience. Below, this article will introduce these three driving forces in detail. Re-examining the role of trial production. First of all, the innovation of the '1' development process can be achieved by using 3D printers as a communication tool. 　　 In the past, in the manufacturing development process, 3D printers were used as a means of making prototypes. Yes. This is because as an extension of 'rapid prototyping, 3D printers can produce prototypes quickly and inexpensively.' Its function is to transform design information into entities, observe shapes through assembly, and confirm performance in experiments.　In the past, 3D printers were mostly used to shorten the trial production period and reduce costs. In the future, as 3D printer molding becomes more convenient, the application of this method as a communication tool in the upper reaches will expand.　　The cost and time required to make a three-dimensional model using a 3D printer is continuously decreasing. In addition to replacing the past prototype production methods, the role of trial production has also been reconsidered. Use as a communication tool is one of the new functions. Even in the case of “inability to conduct trial production due to cost and time constraints in the past, trial production can now be started with the help of a 3D printer, and the number of trial products that can be produced at a time and the number of re-productions after improvement will increase significantly. 　　The prototype can not only be used to confirm the shape and function as before, but also can be used in the design decision-making process, that is, the stage of repeated trial and improvement. Discussion on the basis of physical objects will help deepen understanding and find out from the computer screen Problems that cannot be found in the 3D models and drawings on the above. 　　 It should be noted here that since it is based on real objects, it is necessary to deploy relevant personnel on the manufacturing site. With the development of globalization, remote communication using IT technology is becoming more and more necessary , The popularity is also increasing, but this is still not as good as witnessing physical exchanges. In Japan, companies are geographically concentrated, and through the use of 3D printers, it should be possible to nurture new development processes with this advantage. 　Easy to deal with small quantities Making full use of 3D printers in production can make a leap in the ability to cope with small-scale production. 3D printers are suitable for single-piece and small-scale production, and trial production also takes advantage of this feature (Figure 2). Because there is no need to prepare molds, the initial investment is small and also It is easy to adapt to changes in output. Moreover, there is no need to consider the path of the tool and the direction of demolding during the production process. Therefore, the degree of freedom of shape is high, and it is easy to customize the shape of each product. (The above is cut by metal laser The machine is edited and organized from the Internet, see www.gnlaser.com for details)