Driving Innovation in Product Design and Manufacturing Using 3D Printing
device was drastically scaled down, creating a much lighter instrument with optimized components. See Figure 5.
Figure 5- From traditional shaft level indicator to 3D Printed METRO
4. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE LIME INDUSTRY
Enhancements through 3D printing save up to 90 percent of the raw material costs, reducing waste of material nearly to zero. The materials used are lighter and weight optimization is enhanced compared to traditional production technologies.
These advantages allow a faster, and more affordable feedback loop between design, prototyping, production and customer experience to achieve the best version, correcting all defects and criticalities. The process is also very flexible and produces identical shapes, but with completely different properties, according to the material used in the printing process. All this information is stored and collected in the manufacturing process history, helping engineers and designers to cross-match information, identify any underperformance or quality issues and correct it quickly.
Finally, being so flexible and reconfigurable, the printing process brings immeasurable benefits for customers willing to transform themselves from the final user to the producer, providing a printing machine and skilled engineers. Spare parts and entire equipment could be printed directly on site. In an ideal future, entire plants will be produced directly on site: eliminating the need to transport heavy steel parts; eliminating storage of parts in warehouses waiting for assembly and erection. Everything could be produced when required and be completely independent from third party companies.
To compare the old solution with the new 3D printed model, the whole life cycle must be considered, from material purchase to maintenance activities. With a ranking of 1 to 10, the
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