- Innovation and product design cycles will accelerate
With 3D production, machines can switch between different parts as fast as operators can load a new 3D design file and feed in the raw materials, giving manufacturers unprecedented levels of agility and flexibility.
- Barriers to entry will drop
Companies don’t need capital to invest in a factory to start manufacturing. Instead, startups can contract with manufacturer-oriented 3D-printing service bureaus, such as Stratasys’s RedEye and Kraftwurx, to get the product flowing.
- Manufacturing and assembly will move closer to customers
Freed from traditional economies-of-scale constraints, manufacturing and assembly can move physically nearer to the customer and become more responsive to individual customer needs while reducing logistics costs and, potentially, carbon footprints.
- Production speed and quality will increase
3D printing lets designers build complex structures as a single unit that would have required separate parts using conventional manufacturing processes.
- Manufacturing models will be redefined
For some products, 3D will make it easier and cheaper to manufacture locally instead of in low-cost countries thousands of miles away. For a few industries, manufacturing will move back to where it was outsourced from in the first place, and the supply chain will get a lot shorter. —Uwe Kylau, development expert, SAP SE
- Warehouses and inventory will go virtual
Increasingly, warehoused parts will be replaced by virtual inventories and design files that the manufacturer ships electronically to a local manufacturing depot, service bureau, or even a 3D printer in the customer’s home or business.
There’s more.