3D Dreaming

3D Printing brings to mind almost limitless ideas about potential applications and neat things to make. 3D Printing is definitely a big deal.

I always enjoy seeing clever 3D Printed parts. I remember how impressed I was the first time I saw a 3D Printed flexible gasket, printed directly to a complex net shape. Normally, a steel-rule die would be needed to cut the gasket. The fabrication of the steel-rule die was eliminated. That approach is very helpful for quickly prototyping devices. However, like everything, it has its limits, which are seldom discussed. Let’s think about 3D Printing from a Process Perspective and see what we can learn. I have created, seen, and worked on many different industrial processes over the years. By “industrial processes”, I mean processes that could be deployed quickly to reliably make many thousands of parts for demanding customers. A partial list of the industrial processes (I actually list the products produced) I’m very familiar with: Optical fiber, small ceramic balls for ballpoint pens, TV picture tube glass envelopes, flat-panel glass via the fusion process, catalytic converter substrates, telecommunication channel-splitting optical filters, and, synthetic fiber-based composite speaker cones. Optical fiber is produced by drawing of the fiber from the heated-tip of a glass cylinder preform at tens of meters per second. For reference, 30 meters per second equals 67 miles per hour, very fast! Things must run error-free and smoothly, all the time. The huge glass cylinder preform has a designed and tailored refractive index which defines the optical properties of the fiber. Amazingly, the refractive index profile across the fiber is identical to that of the preform! This engineered physical behavior is absolutely critical to the inexpensive high-volume production of optical fiber. The bare optical fiber is then coated with a polymer coating as it is produced at these very high speeds. This coated optical fiber is then wound on reels for delivery to customers and installation in fiber networks. The physics and engineering of this fiber-optics process is astonishingly ingenious and truly a “thing of beauty”. All of the processes I’ve outlined above have similarly complex and appropriate processes to produce them. My main learning from this line of thought is how sophisticated, complex and tailored the physics are for the industrial-scale processes I’ve worked on. These highly-designed, complex and profitable industrial processes will not be replaced by 3D printing anytime soon. My bottom-line contention: 3D Printing will not be making optical-fiber, high end semiconductors, etc. anytime soon, perhaps never. To think otherwise seems unrealistic to me.

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YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK

Please think about your new processes, the important ones you are currently developing and working on…

• What can 3D Printing do to help you accelerate your process development? What can 3D Printing NOT DO to help you accelerate your process development?

• When was the last time you evaluated the manufacturability of the process (in a disciplined and systematic format)

I’d enjoy hearing about your “3D Dreaming” stories and journeys! As always, please email me and I’ll get back to you promptly.

All the Best, Marty

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