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Production Automation Revolution: Are We Nearly There Yet?

As more people come to understand 3D printing, key underlying principles of the evolution of manufacturing come into sharp focus. A lot of the excitement around 3D printing comes from being able to create what you want, when you want it. For some time now, the discrete mass-manufacturing market, especially in electronics, has also wanted to do that.

How great would it be to take a product blueprint and simply command the production facility to “make it for me now!” Will we ever get to the stage where the production operation has the ability to reply and say, “Sure, I’ll figure out how to do that and have it to you within the hour?” We may be closer than we think. The base elements to do this have recently been quietly moving into place. Is a revolution about to happen? How should we prepare?

Instant Prototyping

The arrival of 3D printers in industry happened many years ago in the form of large and expensive machines. Technology advancement, as always, brings size and cost reductions until a “critical mass” is reached where wider applications of the technology become viable. This is the point at which the technology takes off, where many more people start to look into further development as commercial aspects are revealed.

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Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in the October 2013 issue of SMT Magazine.