While some companies are succeeding at producing high-quality molds, tooling, and manufacturing aids with 3D printers, others are still scrambling to figure out how best to incorporate the new technology into their systems. That’s according to this infographic recently published by PTC.
The majority of companies now have access to 3D printers, but not all of them are confident they are making the most of them.
That’s not surprising. Often the machines aren’t seamlessly integrated into the product development cycle. And to make matters worse, the journey from CAD design to printed artifact can require data to pass through multiple steps and often multiple applications before reliably building on the 3D printer tray.
Despite the uncertainty with this new technology, most agree that 3D printing is already transforming the way we manufacture products. That’s because it’s an approach that can offer more design freedom, faster time to market, lighter weight options for parts, waste reduction, and, best of all, cost reductions.
And the good news is that we’re quickly overcoming barriers to efficient design for additive manufacturing. Technology is beginning to connect printers directly to CAD systems, and as a result it’s becoming easier to find and correct problems in the digital design before they become problems in the physical product.