Plastics Technology

FEB 2013

Plastics Technology - Dedicated to improving Plastics Processing.

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ADVERTISEMENT outsource and too customized for traditional tooling. In a 3D world, we leave behind injection molding, casting and machining, gaining economy without the scale. 3D printing leads us beyond mass production and into mass customization. It's how a researcher at a Delaware hospital creates a durable ABS-plastic exoskeleton customized to perfectly ft one child, Emma, allowing her to play, explore and hug for the frst time. Then that researcher can make a 3D-printed exoskeleton to ft a different child. And another. And a dozen more. Now 15 children with rare disorders can raise their hands because of mass customization. This rover includes about 70 FDM parts, including housings, vents and fxtures. ing to the production foor. When we at Stratasys (and publications like The Economist, Forbes and The New York Times) call 3D printing "the next industrial revolution," we're not exaggerating. A hundred years ago, the assembly line changed the world with mass production. It brought luxuries to the middle class, good wages to workers and economies of scale to investors. Today, companies like BMW already know that DDM is mass production's heir apparent. One factory-foor fxture, a nameplate-application device, offers an elegant example. Liberated from tooling constraints, BMW engineers reduced the device's weight by half and replaced its blocky stock-metal handles with ergonomic grips — a great relief to workers who might lift the fxture hundreds of times per shift. Today, NASA can shape a complex, human-supporting vehicle suitable for Martian terrain, despite the fact that its parts are too complex to machine, too rapidly iterated to A pediatric engineering research lab has developed and 3D-printed custom devices for their smallest patients. Ideas born today — your ideas — are freer to solve problems faster than ever before. Now, two innovators who helped spark this revolution have fused to lead the charge together, and more great changes are at hand. Welcome to the new Stratasys, leader of the next industrial revolution. By David Reis, Stratasys CEO They look like shoes. They feel like shoes. But they're actually prototypes. Printed layer by layer on a 3D printer. Every day, 3D printing rewrites another rule of how things are made. 3D printers are at work in product design studios, engineering departments and manufacturing plants. In schools and hospitals and dental labs. Wherever speed, efficiency, and accuracy matter. It is the next industrial revolution. And Stratasys is here to lead it. Come explore the game-changing possibilities of a 3D World at Stratasys.com. F O R A 3 D W O R L D TM Learn more at StratasysForA3DWorld.com Stratasys is a registered trademark of Stratasys, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. 3D printing means prototypes like these, that help product designers put their best foot forward.

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