HP Innovation Journal Issue 09: Spring 2018 | Page 12

G R OW T H I N A WO R L D O F R E S O U R C E CO N S T R A I N T S
As it does so, it is moving beyond
healthcare and agriculture to new
industries such as manufacturing. It
is reinventing how we design, source
materials and fabricate products.
Like any production shift, the
move of biology into the manufac-
turing sphere is likely to happen in
stages. First with bio-inspired materi-
als, then with bio-assisted processes,
and eventually across value chains.
We are already starting to see the
acceleration of bio-inspired materials
4
entering production. From leather
grown in a lab to synthetic silk made
5
from spider DNA , to self-healing
6
concrete , the possibilities are end-
less when you combine the power of
nature and technology for new and
replacement materials.
Nature-Inspired Fabrication
In a resource-constrained future, we
may need to find alternative materials
to supplement or replace what we use
to make products. This could mean
that factories of the future will lever-
age processes that use self-assembly,
self-organization and bio-inspired
materials to produce new products.
Until now most of our product
manufacturing has relied on subtrac-
tive and replicative fabrication. What
this means is that we would take a
piece of material, and we would shave
off some of that material to make the
part in the shape we wanted. That
is subtractive manufacturing. We
started this type of manufacturing
at the dawn of human history, pick-
ing up rocks, and chipping them into
tools. Eventually, we began to pay
attention to what kinds of rocks we
chose and selected particular kinds of
12
rocks based on their characteristics.
We then started melting down some
of these rocks and mixing them with
other rocks and pouring them into
molds we carved out—leading us to
replicative manufacturing.
Now we spend more time focusing
on the detail of materials properties
and science we are actually using to
make fabrication and manufactur-
ing more efficient and to increase
throughput. As we do this, we are
inspired by nature to create parts
with varying material customization
and personalization. In nature, for
example, the organization of cellu-
lose fibers in the branch of a tree give
the tree branch flexibility and yield.
These properties are substantially
different from the material in the
trunk of the same tree. It’s the same
wood but their mechanical properties
are different based on the function
of that region of the wood. We are
moving into a world where instead
of removing material, we add details
needed by modifying the material
rather than assembling another part.
This is called additive manu-
facturing, an area HP is helping to
pioneer and advance with its Jet
Fusion technology. With this tech-
nology, we can control material
properties. HP Jet Fusion can
change the material’s color, but
also has the potential to control
other fundamental physical proper-
ties—mechanical strength, texture,
elasticity, electrical and thermal con-
ductivity, index of refraction, opacity,
etc. So, as an example, a manufac-
tured part can have durable, hard
surfaces with a low friction coefficient
where contact and wear will occur,
and a differing index of refraction in
another area, forming a lens.
But what if we could add more
and more structural and functional
complexity to materials? What kind
of valuable parts and products could
we produce?
Nature again provides the clue.
Take, for example, the leaves on a lotus
plant: delicate but constantly exposed
to the elements, the leaves somehow
always stay clean. How is that possi-
ble? It turns out those delicate leaves
are composed of nanostructures that
make the leaf’s surface superhydropho-
bic, meaning as the drops of water roll
off the surface, they roll the dirt parti-
cles away with them.
What if we could impart those
same nanostructures into materials
we fabricate? With that level of con-
trol, we can create materials that are
resilient, with higher capacity and
capabilities. The possibilities are end-
less, as in nature.
Reimagining the Supply Chain
In the next several years we’ll start to
see BioConvergence enter the supply
chain, replacing point processes.
This will create radical shifts in pro-
cesses that support production and
the equipment and software that run
those processes.
We are already starting to see
some of this reinvention occur. For
instance, BioFabUSA, started by
Dean Kamen, one of the world’s most
prolific healthcare inventors and
entrepreneurs, and the Advanced
Regenerative Manufacturing Insti-
tute, aim to make practical large-scale
manufacturing of engineered tissues
and tissue-related technologies.