While some Industry 4.0 technologies are more nebulous like Big Data and the Industrial Internet of Things, additive manufacturing (AM) is hands on and visual. You can see a new additively manufactured piece being printed and feel it, from a rocket booster the size of a truck to a micro-lattice part the size of a match head.
With this power and flexibility, the additive process is redefining the way factories approach and think about the design process. However, the change is not happening overnight.
“We’re talking about transforming a $13 trillion manufacturing industry. That’s not an easy task,” Stratasys Global Director of Transportation Fadi Abro said. “We’re not going to take all of those trillions and put them into additive manufacturing. But if you look at scale, $40 billion is invested in the 3D printing market today.”
For this transformation, it is important to establish a playbook for the journey into a distributed and additive manufacturing future. It requires a mindset shift, Abro added. “Additive manufacturing is not a single product, solution or material. It is a way of doing things. It’s also about localizing production. We need to have ways to react to supply chain problems, and additive manufacturing can be that answer.”
Read the article in full at Integr8series.com.
Sign up today for a free Essential Membership to Automation Alley to keep your finger on the pulse of digital transformation in Michigan and beyond.
