Why should I be 3D Printing? - Immediate, continuous improvement

Imagine you purchased 1000 units of a part which you use in your product. After selling 100 units of your product in a month, one of your customers complains about a critical design flaw or defect.

What do you do?

Do you continue selling the remaining 900 units and risk your company’s reputation or liability?

Do you throw away 900 units of the part?

Do you painstakingly modify the 900 units to replace the defective or improper part?

In a similar scenario, what if a product designer came up with a great product improvement when 100 of 1000 units have been sold?

Do you wait 9 months to sell 900 more, then improve your product?

Do you try to retrofit the new design at great cost?

If this part was produced with 3D printing, it could be made to meet your demand exactly. You could produce 100 of the part per month, or just 25 a week. If the part was found to be inappropriate (weak, ugly, too stiff, too flexible etc.), it could be modified almost immediately.

In another scenario, if a potential improvement is discovered this can also be implemented quickly. These changes could be small, like fine-tuning dimensions, or entirely new features in the part or product.

In both cases, with 3D printing you are not left with 900 units of stock which you don’t want to sell. Instead, changes can be made immediately and rolled out to your customers.

This process can repeat itself for a compounding benefit. Every month after you sell 100 units, the design can be improved. By the time the person in the first scenario has sold 1000 units, you could have improved your product 10 times.

This is especially useful for businesses in the early stages of their product design. The product may be untested and without feedback. It’s extremely difficult to predict the best design choices for a product before it reaches customers.

Of course, for companies with long-standing, tested and refined products - mass manufacturing is the way to go.

Do you think your products will continue to be improved and adjusted this year? If so, 3D printing could be a good way to produce parts which can be rapidly improved over time.

If you need help to implement 3D printing, 3D Printing for Business is here to help.

Thanks for reading,

Simon

simon@3dprintingforbusiness.com.au