GE has mass produced via 3D-printing a metal nozzle tip that would have been
difficult to produce using other methods:
An Epiphany Of Disruption: GE Additive Chief Explains How 3D Printing Will
Upend Manufacturing.
Jun 21, 2017 by Tomas Kellner
The nozzle met the team’s wildest expectations. Morris’ machine not
only combined all 20 parts into a single unit, but it also weighed 25
percent less than an ordinary nozzle and was more than five times as
durable. “The technology was incredible,” Ehteshami says. “In the design of
jet engines, complexity used to be expensive. But additive allows you to get
sophisticated and reduces costs at the same time. This is an engineer’s
dream. I never imagined that this would be possible.”
http://www.ge.com/reports/epiphany-...xplains-3d-printing-will-upend-manufacturing/
But what I really find interesting in this article are some comments GE's
additive manufacturing head Ehteshami said about what he see's for the
future of 3D-printing:
“I was excited but also disturbed,” says Mohammad Ehteshami after a
vendor printed an complex part for a jet engine. “I knew that we found a
solution, but I also saw that this technology could eliminate what we’ve
done for years and years and put a lot of pressure on our financial model.”
and:
Ehteshami calls his additive awakening an “epiphany of disruption.”
Says Ehteshami: “Once you start thinking about it, you realize both
intellectually and emotionally ‘Oh my God, if I don’t start moving, somebody
else will.’ You are excited because you are an engineer, but you are also
afraid because you are a human being. Both of these feelings start pulling
at you to say: ‘I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go.’ And you start running.”
From the way I interpret what Ehteshami is saying, it mirrors something I've
been thinking. You can imagine not just cars being fully 3D-printed, but
entire airplanes, tractors, construction vehicles, refrigerators, air
conditioners, and everything else called "durable goods". But this would
mean nearly all manufacturing jobs would be replaced by 3D-printing
machines. That is a major economic disruption.
Not only that, but all these would become much cheaper. Would the companies
that produce them even be billion dollar companies anymore?
Bob Clark