The behind reason of the increasing number of 3D printing adoption is the advantages ranging from customisation, cost reduction, shorter new product development process and waste reduction (Long et al., 2017)
Customisation is the crucial advantage of 3D printing. Product is easily produced by using computer aided design to create file then printed out follow customer need. This helps to enhance customer satisfaction. There are product varieties follow each customers requirement. Co creation concept integrated with 3D printing allow customer to collaborate with company to design the product. Customers gain the benefit to get the printed product that they exactly want. Printing on demand is going to be replaced industrial printing which requires high volume of standard goods. Without the advantages from the economics of scale, company doesn’t need to find the high order of goods from customer around the world anymore. They are able to rely on local customer instead. With this reason, customers are altered from distant customers to be local customers. (Ben-ner and Siemsen, 2017)
Cost Reduction is the crucial factor which induces many companies shift from their current traditional technology to be 3D printing. The cost is driven down as a result of no tool or mold is required. Products are formed through the nozzle at the machine. Only printer, material and digital design software are necessary to produce final product. Moreover, the production process is shorter than the previous process. Assembly process is eliminated so fewer workers are required in the production resulting in lower labour cost. The worker for the 3D printing production process does not require high skill worker, the machine can work automatically by itself. Not only the labour cost but the training cost is also lessened. The traditional manufacturing requires the unique training for each product but the process to produce every product of 3D printing technology is the same so the training cost is lower. Another related cost is marketing cost, it also reduces as a result of the changing customer to be a local customer. Local customers are close to the manufacturing site so they see how company work. They can build trust without the high marketing expense when compare with the global customer.
Shorter New Product Development process is also another advantage resulting from this technology. Normally the involved time to create prototype is quite long. With this advanced technology, prototype can be produced to get the approval conveniently. Getting the prototype in the early stage is very helpful because they can gain the feedback from the customer earlier as well. R&D can bring these feedbacks for adjusting product to meet the needs of customer before launching which is very helpful to the success of product launch. The shorter process decrease time to market significantly. Moreover 3D printing cut the cost to create sample substantially. This helps to mitigate the risk to invest the full production for making prototype.
3D printing brings about the waste reduction. As the process is the addition of material, the unnecessary materials are not cut out as waste unlike the traditional process which is the subtractive process. In subtractive process, materials normally are craved out by milling grinding and machining process. With this reason waste is considerably lesser.
References
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Wang, Q., Sun, X., Cobb, S., Lawson, G. & Sharples, S. (2016). 3D printing system : an innovation for small-scale manufacturing in home settings?-early adopter of 3D printing systems in China. International Journal of Production Research. 54(20), 6017-6032.
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