To view this page ensure that Adobe Flash Player version 11.1.0 or greater is installed.

Creating a More Flexible Design Process with 3D Printing By Steven Schain By making it possible to prototype and iterate a design faster and cheaper than ever before, 3D printers are truly revolutionizing the world of product design. printing changes this into a parallel process, where the design, prototyping, and testing phases can all happen at the same time. This change has taken place because of the time it now takes to develop a working prototype. What once took weeks or even months now takes mere hours. Thus, designers and engineers are able to iterate a design in days instead of weeks or months. Every day, a designer is developing a new part or product that needs to accomplish a specific task. Creating a product from scratch, or even redesigning an existing product, can be a time- consuming and difficult task. In the past, the whole process of designing, prototyping, making changes, and finally manufacturing was a linear, rigid process. Getting a product to market either took a great deal of time, or the product was not tested as completely as it should have been. This limited the flexibility of the overall design process. 3D printing has changed the entire process of taking a product from the idea stage through prototyping to production. The traditional method is a linear progression of steps, from idea to prototype, from prototype to production. 3D This shortening of prototype development time has affected the design process in a number of ways. First, it gives the designer the ability to iterate the design more often and with greater accuracy, making small changes each time. For example, a design can be saved and printed overnight, letting the designer review the changes first thing in the morning. If additional changes are needed, they can be made, and the process repeated. Another result of achieving faster iteration is that the quality of the finished product is much higher. Since changes can be made so quickly, the prototype can be reviewed by not only the engineer but also other interested parties like marketing and quality control. Each person can provide their own valuable feedback to the designer. That feedback can then be quickly incorporated into the next iteration until the product is ready. This is one of the key advantages of 3D printing. www.cadlearning.com 25