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3D printers have been around for a while. They date back to 1983, when Chuck Hull of 3D Systems Corporation invented the first. Since that time, the technology has gone largely under the radar due to the elevated manufacturing costs. Other emerging technologies like smartphones and tablets have had much greater success – that is, until now. Back in 2002, any standard techie could tell you that at £20,000 per printer, it just wasn’t financially viable for most businesses. Yet, lately, this has decreased to a fraction of the previous price, so it is finally being considered to have legs in the manufacturing world.
So how does it work exactly? 3D printing, or ‘additive manufacturing’, as it is also known, requires an initial computer design or a scan of the desired object. This is sliced into wafer-thin virtual layers by the computer, and these are then printed in sequence using melted plastic, creating a three-dimensional object. This means that literally any shape, however weird, wonderful or unique, can be printed as a solid object, in theory.
Dr Phil Reeves, who is the managing director of an additive manufacturing company, claims that the ability to mass-personalize goods and produce individual products for individual consumers has opened up an incredible opportunity. He says that we have been living in the age of mass production, where everything is the same, but that we are now developing digital tools to make unique products designed by and for individuals. In this way, manufacturing has come full circle to before the Industrial Revolution, when the emphasis was on individual craft.
In east London, Alice Taylor runs a doll-making business called MakieLab. Not so long ago, her dolls would probably have been cheaper to mass-produce abroad, but thanks to 3D printing, that’s no longer the case. She uses suppliers in London and Amsterdam to print the dolls, but all of the assembly is done at her office, and an employee even makes all of the clothes individually and by hand. Every doll is unique. For Alice, it’s cheaper to make dolls to order for her customers, rather than mass producing them and paying the manufacturing and transport costs.
Alice’s business is not alone. We are seeing more and more businesses like hers focusing on personalized consumer goods. This has a knock-on benefit for the environment as well, since consumers are more likely to keep a product for longer if it has been tailor-made and holds particular sentimental value for them.
Once the technology gets up to speed, what does the future hold for 3D printing? It seems that as soon as different materials can be used and can be combined with electronics, it will be possible to print not just a mobile phone cover (these are already being made by a limited number of start-up companies), but also a working phone. Richard Hague, Professor of Innovative Manufacturing at the University of Nottingham, is excited by 3D printing’s potential. He said that he was trying to move away from single material additive manufacturing, to manufacturing the whole product or system using different materials.
3D printing is currently under close scrutiny, because it is still largely in development, but in the future it is thought that it could be used to produce lighter aircraft, spare parts for spacecraft and even working body parts. However, we might have to wait a little while to see if those plans actually come to fruition.
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