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● Printing Business Guide
● Sanjoli Jain
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February 17 2021
Software and equipment are revolutionizing the digital print industry. This is
because, with digital printing, companies can produce more work at lower costs.
There are many other reasons too. For example, design flexibility, easy
prototyping, customization, material efficiency, and viable low-volume
production. However, the industry still needs to tackle some issues. 3D digital
printing technology poses its own unique challenges. Here we have identified
some 3D printing challenges that entrepreneurs must understand. Let’s have a
look at it!
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1. Slow Production Speed
The digital printing methods offer low-cost production, but the rate of production
is often slow. This is one of the biggest 3D printing challenges. Speed matters a
lot, especially for companies looking forward to large-scale production. Many
current 3D printers used by industries still lag behind in terms of speed and
efficiency compared to their traditional counterparts.
Most manufacturers are looking for ways to make 3D printing faster and eliminate
this digital printing industry challenge. Some have even developed systems that
can help increase outturn while some are working to further improve the existing
machines.
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against 1-2 lasers currently. It will significantly accelerate the printing time. An
Australian company, Aurora Labs, is also looking to enable metal 3D printing at a
faster rate by implementing a powder bed fusion process.
2. Inconsistencies in Material
The inconsistency in materials is another major digital printing industry
challenge. The material development of 3D printing is still in the early stages.
Experts did not use to put much emphasis on material properties during the early
years of 3D printing and prototyping.
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printing technologies, has developed several new materials, the latest being Onyx
FR, which is the first flame-retardant composite material.
3. Lack of Standardization
The 3D printing technology allows engineers to produce single items
inexpensively. But the quality assurance is not always there. Only high-end
machines produce goods that are inferior as compared to the traditionally
manufactured ones. One of the reasons behind this is a lack of universal
standards.
Experts at Deloitte notes that: “Many manufacturers have difficulty stating with
certainty that parts or products produced via 3D printing—whether all on the
same printer or across geographies—will be of consistent quality, strength, and
reliability”. Without this standardization, there cannot be a process to judge the
risk of uncertain quality of products. This could prove to be too costly in the long
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run. Hopefully, the American Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing
Standardization Collaborative (AMSC) takes the necessary steps to end this
uncertainty. Its mission is to frame consistent and industry standards and
specifications in order to facilitate the growth of the 3D sector.
This is not a big issue when 3D printing is used just for prototyping. But, for the
end-part manufacturing process, scaling and automating, post-processing has
become of the key importance. Using human labor for the post-processing of a
prototype is cost-effective. However, when producing thousands of such 3D
printed parts, an automation process becomes extremely necessary.
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The designing part of the 3D printing workflow is not as easy as it seems.
Industrial 3D and digital printing require significant design requirements and
preparations. The model needs to get ready on the software before printing.
After running the simulation, if the results indicate failure, you’ll need to go back
through all these steps and jump software to change some parameters, prevent it
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from failing and make the model printable. Hence the whole process is
time-intensive and error-prone. Industry experts are trying to ease the burden of
these 3D model preparations in multiple ways, but there’s still room for
development.
6. Lack of Expertise
Lack of expertise is yet another digital printing industry challenge. Perhaps an
important one. There is still a huge gap in 3D printing technology knowledge, its
features, its capabilities, and how they are used.
Plus, there are not enough employees and experts who have the background to
design, perform and operate the machines. As a result, businesses that could
benefit from the technology are not willing to adopt it. They constantly struggle to
develop a relevant business case or use case for 3D printing.
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the Georgia Institute of Technology, are preparing engineering students by
launching 3D printing labs initiatives that deliver hands-on training.
7. QA Challenges
Part to part variation is often visible in the output of the printed designs. The
reason for that is the consistency of the material. The final output that comes out
of the system is not necessarily how you imagine it to be. Sometimes you may
get the weakest part for what you have designed. This means that you’re not able
to fully leverage digital technology.
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absent in traditional manufacturing. This leads to variations in the part quality
from design to design.
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Here we have shed light upon just eight 3D printing challenges that many
industries are facing. As a young technology, digital and 3D printing has many
challenges, and the industry is ready and equipped to overcome them. Over the
last decade, the industry has made a huge leap forward by developing better and
faster printing technology, creating more materials and automation solutions. Do
your businesses utilize manufacturing solutions? What challenges do you face?
Let us know!
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