The need for a holistic approach

A 3D printing success story is a combination of long term vision and short term experimentation

Ask any business leader the question “How can 3D printing benefit us?” and observe one of two conversations take place: the first hearkens back to the headlines pushed by The Economist, The New York Times, Wired, et al. In one conversation, the hands of VPs, marketing directors and executives are clasped behind heads and the phrase “4th industrial revolution” is used with abandon. The outcome is often 3D printing strategies that will “make us industry leading disruptors.” This looks plausible and forward-thinking on a whiteboard and in investor relations press releases, but when these revolutionary propositions are handed down to departments, process managers, and product owners to implement, they often quickly reveal themselves to be technically, economically, or operational untenable.

The alternative conversation is a cacophony of technical speak, datasheets, and process guidelines, with a laser-focus on the nuts and bolts of 3D printing. While far more tactical than the strategy-focused conversation, the starting position of this debate is that 3D printing must comply with the status-quo: material for material, process chain for process chain, part cost for part cost. Whether it’s engineers who do not have the authority to change operating procedures or conservative business leaders who do not want to stray from orthodoxy, this attempt at making sense of 3D printing is limited to a narrow window of “improving on the now” rather than “developing what’s next.”

Both approaches to deciphering where and how AM sits within the business provide their own benefits and blockages. While capturing the value of the transformational change that 3D printing can enable demands fundamental shifts in organizational structure and business model design, those initiatives are the ones that will return significant value to the company in the mid to long term. Although big ideas offer big reward, they also present big risks. Pivoting an entire business function or process around 3D printing is an extremely complex and precise undertaking that requires a comprehensive and well-tested understanding of how the technology works, integrates, and operates within that specific company. Forming an additive strategy for long-term highvalue return without having developed a well thought-out plan for deploying additive manufacturing within the business is the functional equivalent of diving into the ocean not knowing how to swim; there is a chance you will figure it out, but the odds are against you.

What is your additive persona?

The additive persona model below will help you visualize your exectations of 3D printing within your business, from how it will generate value to how you intend to integrate and deploy it. For each question, select the one personas you believe best represents your organization’s additive ambitions. This activity will highlight whether your organization has a more transformational and evangelist ambition for 3D printing, or a more opportunistic and realist expectation of the technology. Run this exercise with multiple business functions to gain a clearer picture of your organization’s additive persona. This exercise will help visualize your strengths and reveal your blindspots.

Create new value propositions Enable diversification Drive transformational breakthroughs How do you expect 3D printing will support your value proposition?

Blue water Red water Improve existing value propositions Enable line extensions Help optimize the core

Shake up the status-quo Diversify and reorganize our structure Be more financially risk tolerant

High risk, high return initiatives Long-term, strategic value Qualitative, learnings Broad

Full scale release Move fast and break things Develop bespoke solutions Enterprise wide initiatives How will you integrate 3D printing into your organizational structure and business model?

Experiment Maintain

How do you intend to measure the value of 3D printing to the business?

Big hairy goal Low-hanging fruit

How will 3D printing initiatives be executed and deployed across the business?

Ambitious Measured Preserve structure Operate within current parameters Remain financially risk adverse

Low risk, low return initiatives Short-term, quick wins Quantitative, tangible Focused

Preliminary pilots Structured focus with plan Apply existing solutions Business unit initiatives

The need for basic technical competency is the other side of the equation: How does 3D printing work? Where can we use it today? What are we confident we can accomplish? Above all else, how can 3D printing support the business in the here-and-now with minimal change to the current status-quo? This approach is often technically driven with a tight focus: opportunity is not measured by scale of value across the business, but by technical feasibility of specific applications.

The benefit is that a tighter focus on smaller, singular applications and projects allows a company to begin building a foundational understanding of 3D printing, something often overlooked and cited as a blocker for many companies looking to implement additive outside of the prototyping lab and more broadly across the organization.

These smaller initiatives return quick, short-term value (most often via cost-saving and operational efficiency gains) with minimal risk and cost, while simultaneously building a community of practice. Unfortunately, the focused nature of this approach also leads to this new knowledge being siloed within teams, departments, or facilities, with larger value opportunities for additive that require cross-department collaboration, executive level involvement, and organizational restructuring put out of reach.

For any organization to make the most out of additive demands both approaches: long-term vision supported by real-world practice. Look behind any of the most well known 3D printing success stories, from GE’s turbo-prop engine to Adidas’s Futurecraft running shoes, and you will discover years of investment, education, pilot projects, and strategy development. These well known additive pioneers reached the moon because they built a sturdy launch pad. This book is written to provide you, your colleagues, and your business a shortcut to building that additive launch pad, providing the information and inspiration for you to holistically understand the full breadth and depth of 3D printing’s potential, from redesigning tooling to radically transforming your market proposition.

For the visionaries and strategic thinkers, it provides a counterweight of technical knowledge and investment considerations to ensure your big ideas are not only impactful, but are technically feasible and can be deployed in the real world. For the realists and tactically minded, it challenges assumptions of what’s possible with 3D printing. It enables you to go beyond low-risk incremental improvements within a department, procurement procedure or plant. It provides the context and confidence to examine how today’s additive technologies and capabilities have driven wholesale process, supply chain, and business model reconfiguration within a wide array of industries.

Making sense of 3D printing can often seem like a mysterious art, only achievable by multi-million dollar organizations or revered individuals with decades of insight. In fact, much of the required knowledge exists today, but is often overly complex, fragmented, and difficult to find. This book distills this information down into a single repository, defined by familiar business functions — prototyping, manufacturing, assembly, sales, and maintenance — so that any person, from any business unit, from any industry can answer the question, “How can 3D printing benefit us?”

How to use this book

Although we encourage you to read this book cover to cover, we have formatted the contents to make it easy for you to quickly look up the relevant information you need at any time. Chapters are defined by distinct milestones within the product lifecycle, from prototyping to maintenance and aftermarket. Within each of these chapters, we have segmented the information into the following four key knowledge areas so that the contents are not only informative, but actionable.

1/

Applications

The application space for 3D printing goes far beyond creating more complex products. This section categorizes the various applications for 3D printing across product design, process efficiency, and market strategy.

2/

Archetypes

There are numerous ways companies have adopted 3D printing. This section explores some of the best models and methods used to bring additive into the business depending on organizational culture, technology, and objectives.

3/

Technologies

3D printing is a complex ecosystem, with new platforms and materials appearing daily. This section describes which additive processes are best matched to meet different requirements, be they mechanical, economic, or organizational.

4/

Implementation

Once a company has identified the right technology and business case, it needs to determine how to make it happen. This section details the people, process, and technology actions that must be considered when deploying 3D printing.

Part two

3D printing across the product lifecycle

3D printing has the potential to impact every part of your business in a variety of ways. In this section, we examine how 3D printing impacts five major business functions, describing where, why, and when it makes sense to adopt 3D printing.