Where will 3D printing technologies take us? 3D printing technologies offer great promise. They shrink traditional barriers of complexity, skill and design constraints, enabling new business models, novel products, and a new aesthetic. 3D printing technologies will unleash new perils, such as thorny intellectual property issues, DIY crime, and threats to consumer safety. This talk offered a glimpse into the future by examining ten core principles that make 3D printing a disruptive technology. From the 2013 Taking Shape Summit: Additive Manufacturing: 3D Printing--Beyond Rapid Prototyping.

1. Keynote
Melba
Kurman
Author,
FABRICATED

2. Ten Principles of 3D printing:
the promise and peril of a machine
that can make (almost) anything
Melba Kurman
Co-author, Fabricated: the
New World of 3D Printing
Triple Helix Innovation

3. Coming soon
Japanese, Arabic, German, Hebrew

4. •
•
•
•
•
When complexity gets cheaper
Ten reasons why 3D printing is disruptive
Risks & challenges (the perils)
3D printing applications & market size
New business models (the promise)

5. When complexity
gets cheaper

6. Complexity = time and money
3D printing technologies shrinks the cost of
•
•
•
•
Geometric complexity
Design prototyping
Assembly
Customization
Complex customization becomes cheaper

7. Changing the equation
Image source Enrico Dini

8. Cheap power

9. Cheap calculations &
communications

10. Why now? A perfect storm
Design software
Cheap computing power
Compressed product design cycles
Fast and ubiquitous Internet
Secrecy to defeat counterfeiting
New materials
Medical imaging
Cheap hardware

11. Ten reasons why 3D
printing is a
disruptive technology
Earl Stewart

12. Manufacturing complexity is free
Oak Ridge Laboratories

13. Variety is free
Adjunct Engineering, LLC

14. No assembly required
Image Objet/Stratasys

15. Manufacturing footprint is small and
versatile
Sendero Group Travel Blog

16. Shorter lead time to product-in-hand
Made in Space

17. Skill lies in the design file, not the
human operator
CADSpan, Inc.
CADSpan, Inc.

18. Less waste by-product
Northwest Polytechnic University

19. Print materials in infinite blends
Image: Cornell Creative Machines Lab

20. David Own, Natasha Ganjee
Rip, mix and burn the physical world

21. New design possibilities
Custom Bone Implants, http://dentechblog.blogspot.com

22. Risks & Challenges

23. No manufacturing standards (yet)

24. Consumer safety
“Consumer 2 Consumer” manufacturing
Taylor Alexander

25. Intellectual property

26. Jonathan Butcher, Cornell
New ethical challenges

27. Haveblue.org
Printed weapons
3D printed weapons
3D printed gun parts. Photo by
Michael Thad Carter for Forbes

28. Market & Applications

29. Today: How industries use 3D printing
Source: Wohlers Associates, 2013

30. Applications for 3D printing
Data source: Wohler Associates, 2012

32. Where from here?
3D printed
manufacturing
$2.3 billion WW
in 2012*
Global manufacturing
$20 trilllion
U.S.
manufacturing
$3 trillion
*Wohlers Report, 2012

34. New business models

35. University of Nevada, DeLaMare Library

37. Shapeways
Michael Mueller

38. Ultimaker
“The fast, easy to use, Open-source 3D printer”

39. Align Technology
Invisalign, Align Technology

40. KingThink
$1,086.25.
“The ZBOT 3D Printer will let you be a leader in the Third Industrial Revolution.”

41. Nervous System

42. What’s next?

43. As barriers of cost, skill & time fall
away…
Businesses designing and selling…
• Low cost, custom printed living tissue
• Parts optimized for performance that are designed with
computer algorithms
• Product trials that are launched in direct response to
customer demand, that “Scale up from one”
• Custom biomedical devices
• Printed circuits and oddly shaped batteries
• Custom products, on-demand, aimed at a market-of-one
• Services to manage digital rights and authentication
• And … You fill in the rest….

44. Thank you
Melba Kurman
melbak@triplehelixinnovation.com

45. Appendix

46. 3D printing technologies reduce cost
and time barriers
“In the past, performance worked against speed:
the more tests you did to get that optimal
performance, the longer it took. When
complexity is free, the design-to-test-to-refineto-manufacture process for some components is
being reduced from two years to a week.”
-- Thomas Friedman, New York Times