How is 3D Printing Used to Produce Consumer Products?
Modern companies use 3D printing in a variety of ways, including:
- Prototyping new product designs
- Creating complex parts not possible with traditional manufacturing
- Personalizing products for mass customization
- Speeding up production and reducing the time to market
The Role of 3D Printing in the Consumer Products Industry
Today's customer expects more than the one-size-fits-all outcome of traditional manufacturing. They want customized products that are tailored to their specific need. From bespoke braces to personalized footwear, modern companies are adapting their consumer products to meet modern demands.
VAULT is a leading manufacturer of enclosures for tablets, offering highly configurable and customizable solutions. With over twenty years of experience in the point-of-sale (POS) industry, VAULT combines its industry knowledge with an agile workflow to answer the growing need for uniquely branded POS stands and enclosures.
VAULT was approached by a multibillion-dollar customer with a big request and small timeline. With less than two months on the clock, VAULT needed to design, approve, mold, and produce a final, custom product. "It doesn’t even sound possible," says Quentin Forbes, VP Engineering at VAULT. And yet, they delivered with the help of 3D Systems' Stereolithography line of 3D printers.
"They were blown away by the surface finish, the quality, and the overall level of work that we were able to show them based on a conversation we had had just 2 weeks earlier. [We] won over our client straight from the printer."—Quentin Forbes, VP Engineering at VAULT
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How is 3D printing changing product design?
3D printing enables designers to create products that are not possible to produce with traditional manufacturing.
Industrial designers Ashley May and David Evans entered the hi-fi world because they saw an opportunity to do something that had never been done. With access to a 3D Systems SLS 3D printer, they put their heads together to devise a high performance product that took advantage of 3D printing.
“It was like a fresh start for us as designers,” says Evans. “We’ve always known how to design things so they could be manufactured in a particular way, whereas this sort of threw everything out the window and opened up our imaginations to what was possible.”
Their vision was to create a loudspeaker that produces audio quality that rivals a live experience, with a beautiful, sculptural aesthetic. They worked with an acoustic engineer to prototype and refine their vision, until finally arriving on their flagship product, HYLIXA.
“Every component that we 3D printed, we’ve done for a reason,” says Evans. “We’ve used the technology to benefit the product in one way or another, and pushed to take everything to the absolute limit.”
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Node Audio Evolves Hi-Fi Sound with 3D Printed Speakers
Having now earned credibility within the industry, Node Audio is looking to grow.
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SLS 3D Printing Enables Functional Products
Established in 1918 in Idaho Falls, Idaho Steel manufactures, maintains and customizes machines used to render potatoes in an almost infinite variety of sizes and shapes. If you've had french fries, potato salad, mashed potatoes or tater tots, odds are they were produced with an Idaho Steel machine.
Idaho Steel's emphasis on customization makes it a perfect fit for production-quality 3D printing. They created a housing for a laser that detects the material level of a hopper and relays it to the control system. Manufacturing of this durable part was previously outsourced to another company, but the quality was not meeting Idaho Steel's standards.
"3D printing gives us more control over individual parts, which in the end helps us deliver superior equipment in a much faster timeframe." says Jon Christensen, marketing and sales manager at Idaho Steel
"We are no longer limited by our standard and traditional machining tools," says Idaho Steel CEO Bradshaw. "We are only limited by the imagination and creativity of our design group."
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Idaho Steel Embraces 3D Printing
Idaho Steel's emphasis on customization and meeting its varied customer needs makes it a perfect fit for production-quality 3D printing.
Want to Learn More About 3D Printing for Consumer Goods?
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Optimize Your Product Design Webinar
Listen in as David Cullen, Director of Application Engineering at 3D Systems, discusses how to optimize your designs for SLS 3D printing.
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Direct Digital Production Webinar
In this live webinar, join 3D Systems’ advanced application engineer Patrick Dunne and production specialist Tracy Beard as they explain the breakthroughs in additive manufacturing, machine architecture, and materials science.
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Why You Need A Manufacturing Strategy
Join our experts as they share their thoughts on why forming a combined corporate strategy for both additive and traditional manufacturing is critical to your future success.