Rapid manufacturing. (market outlook).

Bill Gates once said that people tend to overestimate what will happen in the next three years and underestimate what will happen in the next six. In the rapid prototyping industry, this has certainly been true.

Over the past three years, there have been many positive developments in rapid prototyping, but few major breakthroughs. From this narrow slice of history, one conclusion would be that the technology is condemned to small, incremental changes for the foreseeable future. However, there are major trends driving the market, the most important of which is the evolution of the technology from rapid prototyping to rapid manufacturing.

Some firms are already beginning to use rapid prototyping processes to do rapid manufacturing (RM), that is, to produce finished manufactured parts. Most of the applications involve relatively small quantities of parts. In fact, it's unlikely that RM will ever reach the production capacity of processes such as injection molding, die casting, or sheet metal stamping, but for some companies, this may not matter. Not all manufacturers produce and sell in volumes of millions, or even tens of thousands of parts.

Consider, for example, companies that produce small quantities of parts such as prosthetic devices, special medical diagnostic equipment, Formula 1 race cars, aircraft and marine products for the military, executive jets and helicopters, and products for NASA. Consider, too, the movement toward the mass customization of consumer products, where a production run will ultimately consist of a single part. For some products, like disposable razors and ballpoint pens, this is unlikely to happen. But for expensive products with Longer life cycles, it is almost inevitable.

There are several barriers to the application of RM that must be overcome before the application becomes common practice. These include surface finishes that are inferior to that of production molded parts, inadequate dimensional accuracy and repeatability, part sizes that are limited to relatively small build envelopes, and the time and expense associated with removing excess resin and performing post curing ...