3d Printing - Changing The Manufacturing Rules Of Australia

By Author: Stuart-Ting
Total Articles: 5
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With a rapidly changing manufacturing environment, businesses are now increasingly eager to invest in technological advancements that could put them a step higher than their competitors. 3D printing is one such technology that most businesses are inclined to take advantage of. 3D printing in Melbourne isn’t just about fashion accessories, life-size replicas and weapons. From design to finishing phase, this technology can speed up the process and reduce costs of manufacturing drastically.

Major advantage of 3D printing

Since it is an additive technology, there is significant saving in costs when 3D printing is used. This is because there is usage of lower amounts of material as compared to traditional methods of manufacturing. Cutting away from a solid block increases costs as material has to be removed for detailing.

Maximum of machines printing in metal can recycle the unused powder, which is the “ink” used in 3D printing. This is another advantage.
There is a wide variety of 3D printing technologies that can be befitted from in the current manufacturing scenario. The use of a range ...
... of energy sources and technologies for fusing metal and plastic feedstock is one of the capabilities of printers.

Plastic printers come in a variety of shapes. They can be personal units that retail for thousands of dollars, or complex manufacturing units that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Designing Phase

The time spent by a product in designing phase heavily impacts the time to market. 3D printing has reduced the time for development by a whopping 96%. With the help of 3D printing, manufacturers can explore multiple iterations of product design variations during conceptual stages of design phase, without the need to invest in the tools required to make the product. This has been especially beneficial for car manufacturers, who use 3D printed mock-ups of the required parts, such as front end fascia’s and rear view mirrors.

3D printing design files can be digitally shared with manufacturers by a process called 3D-faxing. This process can potentially reduce shipping costs and time significantly. Products can be created at digital facilities as per requirement, eliminating customs duties and inspections and also reducing transport costs.

3D printing can be used extensively to manufacture fixtures, jigs, shop tools and gauges inexpensively as well as quickly. These tools are made so as to help assemble more complex parts that can be expensive if manufactured traditionally. 3D printers can save about 90% on the fabrication of fixtures.

An instance of specialized use of 3D printing can be seen in the medicine industry, where surgeons use this technology to create mock-ups of complex surgeries, a technique that allows them to practice a surgery before undertaking it. For example, they can use it to install crews or pins with extreme precision.

3D printing in Australia

Objective 3D got introduced in Melbourne with 3D printing technology primarily being used for manufacturing parts for industries such as defense, mining, automotive, biomedical and construction. The technique, also called as additive manufacturing can be used to produce products of high value for niche markets directly from the printer.
This gives regional and rural areas, which have manufacturing hubs already in place, competitive advantage over others. 3D printing is a fantastic resource for manufacturing locally and providing parts extremely quickly.

Objective 3D consists of 15 high tech 3D printers, all of which individually use electricity comparable to that of a household refrigerator. Also, costs of the printers have dropped drastically, cheap 3D printers available for as little as $250,000.
3D printing can be used to manufacture products that belong to a huge spectrum of industries.