Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Reducing time from design to product in hand (faster)
As our world speeds up, companies are increasingly eager to shorten their time
from design to product in hand. Time to product is a key eficiency metric
for companies, meaning that the shorter the time between a design and the
functioning end product, the better. 3D printing shortens time to product
in-hand by enabling designers and engineers to create on-the-spot product
prototypes quickly and cheaply.
A prototype is the rough draft of a product design. Prototypes speed up the
process by helping designers, engineers, marketing teams and manufacturers
double-check that a design will look, feel and act as planned once becomes
physical. A popular service provided by 3D printing companies is making
product prototypes for car manufacturers.
Automotive manufacturers save time by 3D printing design concepts and
showing them to the project team, even customers sometimes. Mike explained
to us how his prototyping process worked. “We're always feeding the car com-
pany's marketing department with photographs of our prototypes and physical
samples of car parts,” he told us. “We send them several 3D printed samples
of things that are dificult to estimate from the CAD model.”
The day we visited Mike's company, he was working out the details of a
prototyping project for a new truck. Unlike the old days when the prototyping
work would have been handled by an in-house, full-time design team, this
particular car company outsourced their product design work. A regional sales
force and a marketing department were all that was left of its staff. A factory
produced some car parts that were still cheaper to make domestically rather
than offshore.
3D printed any prototype is made are slowly but surely replacing hand-
carved models of foam or clay. Mike's client used both methods, hiring artisans
to hand-carve custom foam models of car parts, and hiring irms such as Mike's
to 3D print prototypes of car parts. Mike told us that his client asked him to
scan the irst round of foam prototypes and then transform the captured data
into a detailed design ile. “Today we're going to pack up the scanner and go
out where they're designing the truck,” he said.
However, before any prototype is made, whether hand-carved or 3D printed,
a truck's design begins with its marketing and engineering departments. After
several brainstorming meetings in which a new truck's speciications and
product goals are clariied, marketers and engineers submit information to
artists who create several detailed, realistic-looking concept sketches. “A lot
of decisions are made on paper before anything really happens,” Mike said.
 
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