The Future

Understanding how 3D printing works is vital to estimating its potential. For the purpose of this article, I have sorted the 3D printing concepts and ideas into five broad areas: Hardware, materials, designs, software, and business models.

Let’s start with hardware and look at the 3D printers of today and tomorrow:

Today, most of the printers available use the same method: Fused Filament Fabrication (see image below). In simplified terms, a filament is fed through a pipe (a) and melted inside a moving head (b), which deposits the molten filament into the desired shape using layers. This process can be used for most materials available today and other 3D printing processes are usually very similar in nature (such as the above-mentioned stereolithography

They are — as the name ‘additive’ manufacturing suggests — additive processes, which means that they create objects by adding materials, not by cutting objects from larger pieces of the material. Therefore, 3D printers only use the resources they need and (in an ideal scenario

For a large part of the past decade, MakerBot (maker of the above-shown example) was arguably the most popular brand for consumer printers and, for a while, their Replicator+ was one of the most acclaimed printers for private usage. According to expert reviews, the machine made it very easy for newbies to get started — something that will become more and more important in the future. By providing the software, the design community, and the filaments as well, MakerBot, which was acquired by Stratasys for over $600 million in 2013, showed what the vertically integrated 3D printing company of the future could look like.

However, the 3D printing market is moving fast and other consumer-centered businesses have presented some amazing hardware since the Replicator+ was released in 2016. MakerBot struggled in recent years and lost its top spot to Taiwan-based XYZPrinting in late 2015, as a result.

And XYZPrinting came to stay. Not only did they manage to offer a 3D desktop printer for under $500 in 2015 (now there are much cheaper ones), but a few weeks ago they also presented the da Vinci Color Mini, which — for under $1,000 — can generate up to 15 million color combinations. Other successful hardware makers include the Dutch startup Ultimaker, which established software integration partnerships with SolidWorks, Siemens, and HP, as well as Aleph Objects, which focuses on the development and distribution of open source hardware, software and designs.

Moving from the consumer market to industrial applications, Somerville-based Formlabs follows a similar integration strategy as MakerBot. In addition to the hardware (see image above for example parts), they offer software, materials, and learning services to their customers. A recent $30 million Series C provided them with the capital to expand their efforts to China — the world’s biggest manufacturer. But they are not the only company targeting the global manufacturing industry: Desktop Metal (based in Burlington, MA — only 15 miles from Somerville) announced their own $65 million funding round just one month before Formlabs did. As mentioned above, both companies have reached evaluations beyond $1 billion.

Generally speaking, it is very likely that 3D printers — consumer- and business-centered models — will become less expensive, much faster and more sustainable over time, which will fuel further industry adaptation and research. This development could be accelerated further by international standards for additive manufacturing, something ASTM International has recently started working on. Additionally, large organizations seem to be ready to invest, even though a market-wide understanding of AM does not exist at the moment. More and more large-scale manufacturers, such as BMW and Ford, have started to test and even use 3D printers for their purposes.

However, most of the parts that were made with AM (so far) have been limited in size. That might not be a problem in the future, though, as companies are racing to create even bigger 3D printers, which will be able to create even more massive products.

One of the largest metal 3D printers to date was presented in May 2018 by Australian company Titomic and can manufacture airplane parts that measure up to 9 meters in length. When the Financial Times reported on the presentation, General Electric’s chief executive for Australia, Max York, told them that GE had used a similar printer to combine 855 separate parts of a turboprop engine into just 12. He added:

“It turns the whole classical design for manufacturing process on its head.”Max York, General Electric, on additive manufacturing

This could be good news for companies who notoriously have volume- and cost related manufacturing problems — such as Tesla and other young car companies. LA-based startup Divergent 3D, for example, aims to build the car factory of the future by enabling ‘volume manufacturing of advanced, lightweight structures without expensive tooling investment’.

“Traditional auto manufacturing is fundamentally broken from an economic and environmental standpoint. You can’t scale factories up and down to meet changes in the market.”Kevin Czinger, CEO of Divergent 3D

Because a car factory can easily cost a billion dollars to be constructed and equipped with tools, it is important for the manufacturer to be able to make a lot of cars, so they stay profitable — they need a large scale from the start. Divergent 3D claims that they can provide a production line for 20,000 cars or more starting at just $50 million. Peugeot, among others, has partnered with them to explore the potential of distributed micro-factories, something we will get back to later.

Maybe, a car or a wing is not big enough for you, though. Maybe, you need a rocket. Well, according to Relativity Space, this is not unrealistic either. They plan on printing 95% of their rockets using their custom Stargate 3D printer and aim to have their first tests in 2020.

But 3D printed objects can become even bigger than that — even with today’s technology. In the Netherlands, construction company Van Wijnen joined forces with the Eindhoven University of Technology to create the first habitable 3D printed houses. The project aims to save cement by only using the amount that is necessary and plans to finish the first five houses by mid-2019 (for a design study, see image below).

Startups, such as Apis Cor, New Storyor ICON, have presented their own solutions for concrete 3D printing and, in the meantime, revolutionized the housing industry. All of the above-mentioned companies have shown that they can print entire housing units in under 24 hours.

Just two years ago, the same printing process still took longer than a month. With traditional methods (humans building the houses), it mostly takes even longer. In addition, a 3D printed house only costs a fraction of a ‘normal’ one. None of the 24-hour-houses mentioned above cost more than $10,000 to make and it is not unrealistic to hope that the cost for a single house could be as low as $4,000 in the future.

Like other hardware products, 3D printers will most likely become better, faster, cheaper, and more sustainable exponentially, until a certain point is reached. Beyond gadgets, cars, and houses, we will discover more potential use cases and better materials in the next few years.

So far, the printers we looked at used either plastic, metal, or concrete as their printing materials. Furthermore, there are some quite exotic materials as well as ideas for better alternatives. To understand the topic of 3D printing materials better, we have to first take a look at the different types used today (a more detailed overview can be found here).

In simplified terms, printing materials can be categorized by raw material as well as by form and almost all materials come in at least one of the three most popular forms — filament, powder, or liquid. Often, the form you will use depends on the printing method of your printer.

Filaments are used in most commercial desktop printers, for example, as most of them are doing fused deposition modeling (FDM), which was shown as a schematic representation above. There are some great filament guides out there (such as this one, this one or this one), so it is very easy to get into it. The most used filament, at the moment, is corn-based PLA (polylactic acid), since it is very easy to use and not expensive. It is also more friendly to the environment than petroleum-based plastics are, even though it is still not perfect.

Stereolithography and PolyJet — its upgraded and optimized younger brother — require liquid resin, which is hardened layer by layer. Similarly, liquids can also be used for vacuum casting. However, the downside is that liquid resins have to be stored at a certain temperature and are harder to handle.

Finally, there are also powders, which have the advantage that you can use them for selective layer sintering (SLS), the youngest member of the family. In this process, no support structures are needed for floating objects and multiple highly-durable models can be produced at the same time.

In terms of raw materials, there is a decent selection and most 3D printers today use polymers (such as ABS, the above-mentioned PLA, or nylon), metals and alloys (such as steel, titanium, or aluminum), or ceramics (such as silica sand, glass, or gypsum).

In the future, however, this might be different, as scientists are trying to convert a large variety of substances into 3D printing materials, including polluted air, moon dust, food waste, ash, and even light. In medicine, researchers hope to use the technology to print organs, humanoid robot bodies and even vaccines one day. Judging from the past, we can safely assume that even more materials will be discovered, researched, and sold in the next few years. They will be cheaper, more sustainable, and easier to use.

But great products are not just the sum of their production materials. In addition to the 3D printer and the raw materials, you need the design — a CAD (computer-aided design) model of the object you would like to make, so the printer knows where to put down the layers of material. Luckily, there are quite a few online communities centered around 3D printing models already and many of them are open source.

Some platforms, such as MyMiniFactory, offer free designs as well as paid ones, for which the respective designers are rewarded whenever their designs are purchased — just like in any other online community marketplace. There are many platforms, which work the same way, such as Pinshape, CGTrader, or Cults. You can find a general overview here.

Repositories (which do not contain a marketplace), on the other hand, usually offer free designs. YouMagine and GrabCAD, for example, are free to use and aimed at educators. The arguably most popular open source platform, though, is Thingiverse. Developed by above-discussed MakerBot, the platform has accumulated more than a million 3D models, which are available completely for free. Just like their parent company, Thingiverse experienced various complications over the years (such as this one, this one or this one). In contrast to MakerBot, though, they are still holding the top spot among open source communities.

In order to use the CAD models provided through such design platforms, we need the appropriate software, as well. Depending on the task at hand, we might even need multiple applications. Luckily, there is a large variety of software products to choose from and most of the best rated applications can be used for free. However, sometimes the use of software is predefined by the type of printer you have.

Generally speaking, though, we need four software components for desktop 3D printing, of which some, or even all of them, could be provided by the same application.

First, we need a design software to create the CAD model of the object (see example below) we want to produce. Whether you download the model or make it yourself, it will most likely be an .stl file. If you downloaded the file, it might not be perfect — the quality of free designs can vary enormously — so you might also need an STL editor. Next, you need to produce the G-code, which is the language your 3D printer understands. Since this component divides the model into layers, so the printer can use the data accordingly, it is called a ‘slicer’. Lastly, you need a printer host, which manages the connection between your computer and your printer by feeding the G-code to the hardware. Of course, this is very generalized, but you can find many great explanations online, which go into further detail.

It is clear to most experts that the influence of 3D printing on traditional business models will be immense. Not only does additive manufacturing make it possible to offer mass-customization for a wide range of products, but it also enables companies (or even their customers) to produce their products on demand. As a result, organizations do not have to centralize production where it is the most feasible, they can produce where it is most convenient for the customer using a decentralized network of micro-factories.

UPS, for instance, already examined the potential of in-store 3D printing services around five years ago and started a strategic partnership with SAP and manufacturer Fast Radius in 2016. Fast Radius offers an on-demand additive manufacturing service, which means that parts are only printed when and where they are needed, and was recently named as one of the ‘Nine Best Factories in the World’ by the World Economic Forum.

Another company offering on-demand manufacturing powered by 3D printing is Carbon. In collaboration with German sports equipment giant Adidas, Carbon aims to create the factories of the future, as well. Starting with 3D printed mid soles and the Futurecraft 4D (see image below), the collaboration will be able to print millions of shoes by the end of the year. In total, Adidas sells around 400 million shoes each year and aims to manufacture all of their products from recycled plastics by 2024 — something that can be achieved much better through 3D printing.

“We have a really aggressive plan to scale this. We are scaling a production. The plan will put us as the (world’s) biggest producer of 3D-printed products.”James Carnes, Vice President of Strategy Creation at Adidas

Together, Carbon and Adidas show how the supply chain of the future could be designed. Not only is it much faster to set up — the Futurecraft 4D only took 11 months from the first design to market release (instead of up to 18 months) — consumers can customize their products before they are made very close to them. Adidas, for example, will not have to produce their apparel in Asia anymore. Instead, they can set up a network of micro-factories close to their biggest customer base.

The disruption and adaptation of traditional business models (and supply chains) will also influence the development of economic models as a whole. One model that will be affected positively by the rise of 3D printing is the sharing economy — an industry that is estimated to grow rapidly in the near future. This is largely due to the fact that the nature of 3D printing is perfect for consumer peer-to-peer trade, while businesses in AM are usually more inclined to collaborate among each other, as well.

Carbon and Fast Radius, for example, have already joined forces twice. In early 2017, Fast Radius served as a launch partner for Carbon’s SpeedCell, a package of revolutionary additive manufacturing technologies, to bring their collaboration with UPS to the next level. Earlier this month, furniture maker Steelcase announced that their award-winning chair SILQ will feature a customizable armrest, which will be designed and manufactured by Carbon and Fast Radius.

“The flexibility of our Application Launch Program (ALP) provided the freedom to brainstorm and try new design ideas for the SILQ. For a design-driven company like Steelcase, this was crucial. Unlike traditional lengthy and expensive design cycles, the additive manufacturing process meant Steelcase could go through as many redesigns as needed to get it right. In this instance, we went from the initial idea with around 100 variables and produced over 12 unique designs in just eight weeks.”Lou Rassey, Chief Executive Officer at Fast Radius

While the armrest of an expensive chair might not be the product everyone in the world needs, the project shows how ‘easy’ it could be to transform other parts of the supply chains, as well. Many customizable products and small scale items, such as watches, office supplies, household items, and glasses, could be made with 3D printers. As a result, it will also become easier to enter the manufacturing market, since the initial investment is much smaller and it is much easier to scale production.

So how are all of these possibilities going to impact the logistics industry?

The short answer is: At every single point of the supply chain. The long answer depends on the degree of industrial adaptation as well as the business models that will be most successful. If we assumed full adaptation of additive manufacturing by all industries, it would mean that transportation companies would become focused on raw materials entirely — a much smaller market. Obviously, this scenario is very unlikely, but it shows the impact that 3D printing could have on a large scale.

Estimating the exact level of adaptation at the moment is just as hard as making future projections, as there are stealth companies and secret research projects around. What we can say for sure is that the disruption has begun in most markets. The spare part supply chain, for example, is already being disrupted by 3D printing and Forbes estimates that AM could account for a $400 billion manufacturing market by 2030. As a result, many manufacturing companies have started to invest vast sums into research and development and federal authorities, such as Australia’s government, have started to invest into the development of additive manufacturing concepts.

In terms of transport, the rise of 3D printing would hit the most asset-heavy markets — shipping and aviation — first and affect long-distance transport much more than short-distance transport. In this regard, changes depend a lot on the respective raw materials and where they can be produced. While rare materials might still need to be distributed around the world, mass market materials might be available locally. Even 3D printers do not have to be shipped anymore, since they can be made by other 3D printers.

As a result, production costs and sales prices of most products and services might decrease significantly, while it becomes feasible to purchase local goods again. As near-shoring will be the norm, product life cycles might become shorter and easier to sustain.