3D Printing Industry is taking an in depth look at how additive manufacturing is moving to production. Over the coming weeks the results of interviews with industry leading practitioners will be published.
This article is part of a series examiningTrends in Additive Manufacturing for End-Use Production。
Menno Ellis is Senior Vice President, Strategy and Vertical Markets, at3D Systems。With a long history of developing 3D printing technology and extensive experience in the industry, 3D Systems shares this substantial insight into how 3D printing is used for production.
3D打印行业：您的打印机用于生产与其他应用程序的百分比估计值是多少？
Menno Ellis：30年前，当3D系统发明了3D打印并启动了该行业时，它主要集中在原型应用上。现在，该技术已经发展到我们打印机中大部分零件用于生产的地步。
The most well known production categories are end-use parts that require varying degrees of post-processing post printing. The examples of these are:
- Medical or dental implants/prosthetics/prosthodontics or hearing aids that are placed inside (worn by) people and animals.
- Medical models produced in advance of surgical procedures.
- Metal components such as antennas, brackets, or manifolds that require minimal sanding or polishing before being put into use.
- Plastic end-use parts in aerospace or automotive applications (for example) that are printed and then painted or plated.
- 直接打印的珠宝物品，鞋子（或鞋子零件），时尚配饰等。
其他示例包括：
Jigs and fixtures that are often produced in high volume to enable production or packaging of other items.
牺牲图案或高体积生产的物品（例如，用于工业，珠宝或牙齿铸造的树脂或蜡图案；生产牙科对准器的树脂模具等）
Then in the broadest sense of the word, you can think about the scenario where prototypes are being developed in a high throughput production environment in either service bureaus or inhouse by industrial manufacturers, such as for example hand tool manufacturers Bridge manufacturing for a variety of products – Typically the first 100 or 1,000 new products are 3D Printed to shorten time-to-market before tooling, etc. is ready.
鉴于上述内容，可以说我们打印机中的大部分零件都用于生产。与此同时，原型制作也仍然是一个重要的应用程序，通常用于开发小型部门，服务局，学校，建筑公司，业余爱好者和发明家等小型原型和模型。
3DPI: Do you have an estimate of the addressable market for AM in production?
ME: When you look globally across industries the addressable market easily gets into the tens of billions of dollars because of the wide and growing range of potential applications. In fact, some in the industry present forecasts in the hundreds of millions or even billions as they look into the future. While we take a more conservative view based on the current state of the industry, we can all agree that the opportunity is vast. Moreover, with penetration being relatively low today, we expect adoption to increase rapidly across a numbers of industries as a result of faster build speeds, larger build platforms, more and better materials, lower equipment and operating costs.
3DPI: Which industries are leading in the use of AM for production?
ME: Dental and medical because of the high need of customization.
Industrial (including aerospace and auto) because of the complex nature of the parts being created – you can create better/lighter parts than you could with other methods, or frankly having the ability to create parts that you cannot create via other methods.
珠宝和铸造（再次 - 遍布广泛的行业），因为开发有效模式而无需投资工具的效率。
3DPI: What barriers does AM face for production and how are these surmountable?
ME: Materials is a key factor that gates production. Having the appropriate materials that substitute incumbent materials is key.
Qualification and certification in highly regulated industries (e.g., aero and medical).
抵制从“传统”运营商改变的。
Design skills so as to design specifically for 3D Printing.
克服这些障碍始于开发和不断扩大材料组合，这些材料可以解决客户和最终用户对生产零件的性能的期望。
Also, software such as 3D Systems’ 3D Sprint and 3DXpert helps reduce the learning curve and level of expertise required to integrate 3D printing. In parallel, there needs to be extensive education and transparent information sharing both from an engineering and application standpoint to demonstrate what it possible, and how AM would integrate within incumbent workflows.
This requires a lot of 1:1 engagement with prospects and regulatory bodies, as well as proactive application development by AM solution providers. This means having a great deal of expertise in-house, as well as facilities where visitors can come and engage with the team, equipment, etc.
We leverage our internal experts and facilities to guide customers through commissioning, qualification, and certification of AM solutions that will ultimately move to their own facilities; thus guiding them every step of the way by leveraging our own experience. We are in the unique position of having a world-class parts manufacturing division with a global footprint (our On Demand Manufacturing group) that plays a key role in enabling this for a variety of cross-industry clients. We have established a one of-a-kind program to facilitate this for the medical industry, which has its own set of more stringent regulatory requirements tocertify partners in precision healthcare production。
最后，我们认识到AM需要向考虑实施的任何公司提供强大的投资回报率和令人信服的总运营成本。因此，我们开发了一系列强大的经济建模工具，以帮助客户看到采用变化的价值主张和可衡量的收益。
In summary, if you want to break through the adoption barriers you need to help companies build a holistic story that proves all the technical and economic benefits. We do that by providing clear and compelling answers to 4 key variables: durability, reliability, repeatability, and TCO (total cost of operations).
3DPI: Are there any notable trends in AM for end use production?
ME：AM行业处于拐点处，因此越来越多地考虑AM用于生产。因此，人们在查看AM时确实学会了提出正确的问题 - 从工作流程到物质属性再到经济利益。很少有人会认真考虑最终用途的生产，而无需进行彻底的评估和对收益进行压力测试。
自动化、机器人技术和人工智能are increasingly combined with AM solutions to provide greater supply chain predictability & visibility, economic benefits, and uptime (monitoring, machine learning, preventive maintenance, etc.)
3DPI: Can you name any specific case studies where AM is used for end use production?
ME: We are very active in the industries mentioned above.
Medical and dental for prosthetics, prosthodontic, and hearing aids for example,Microdent – DMP Metal/dental bridges。
Other published case studies in this area includeMiddle ear prostheses，，，，GN Resound，，，，娜塔莎·霍普·西姆森（Natasha Hope Simson）：3D扫描，地貌，SLA，，，，Derby Dog: 3d printed custom fit prosthetic legs，，，，和3D打印的自定义外骨骼帮助Amanda Boxtel Walk，，，，
Aerospace for manufacturing of high-end components where strength-to-weight is critical is another important area. For example the空客RF天线，，，，Thales Alenia satellite bracket，，，，Boeing using SLSandEuropean Space agency rocket parts。
In Jewelry MJP/wax systems have been used byVowsmith，，，，SIU，，，，and住宅区钻石和珠宝。
For the Automotive industry examples include this underpulley gear forMTI/English Racing，，，，Nissan Motorsports，，，，Renault F1和Ecojet air vents tested by Jay Leno。
其他工业和耐用的好应用包括Bastec and these 3D printed, conformally-cooled injection molds和这个University of Maryland CEEE consolidated heat exchanger。
3DPI：您还需要突出显示该区域吗？
ME: AM adoption in production provides an opportunity for the long standing promised benefits of AM to become reality such as economic benefits, more efficient supply chain, breakthrough product innovation, improved health & personal care.
While many companies will continue to be excited to enter into this space and claim ability to provide production-caliber solutions, we believe only a subset will truly be able to do so. We thus expect to see some bifurcation occurring in the industry where some players will naturally gravitate towards the prototyping and small volume model production space, while others will successfully move into the production space with industrial-caliber solutions, with a robust set of hardware, software, materials, vertical and applications expertise.
全世界正在进行一场医疗革命，建立在创建高度个性化的3D印刷医疗设备以及特定于患者的手术模拟以及直接印刷个性化植入物和定制仪器的能力上。
This revolution is not only fueled by speed and cost, it is transforming and enriching lives. We partner with surgeons, healthcare professionals, medical device manufacturers, and medical teaching staff to offer a range of precision healthcare solutions, including virtual reality simulators, 3D printed anatomical models, virtual surgical planning, patient-specific surgical guides, instrumentation and implants.
We have already established our expertise in the production space with our portfolio of plastics and metals printers combined with our materials, software and services, and are heavily investing in new platforms that will challenge the domain historically occupied by injection molding and traditional manufacturing methods.
我们正在通过开发生产级材料和打印机平台（例如图4）进行匹配或超过注射成型成本和特定应用的吞吐量的方法。所有这些创新都在全球垂直和应用专家以及客户创新中心（CIC）团队的帮助下将其推向市场
提名2018 3D Printing Industry Awards现在开放。让我们知道谁在领导该行业。
This article is part of a series examiningTrends in Additive Manufacturing for End-Use Production。
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