Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing and allow more people to start making things
数字设计、三维印制的技术将使制造变得焕然一新，让更多人开始制作东西
3D printing 3D 印制
Feb 10th 2011 | FILTON | from PRINT EDITION
2011年2月10日 菲尔顿 打印版 2011-2-14 17:40 上传 下载附件 (52.32 KB)
FILTON, just outside Bristol, is where Britain’s fleet of Concorde supersonic airliners was built. In a building near a wind tunnel on the same sprawling site, something even more remarkable is being created. Little by little a machine is “printing” a complex titanium landing-gear bracket, about the size of a shoe, which normally would have to be laboriously hewn from a solid block of metal. Brackets are only the beginning. The researchers at Filton have a much bigger ambition: to print the entire wing of an airliner.
布里斯托郊外的菲尔顿是英国协和式超音速客机舰队的建造之地。在同一片土地上，一幢靠近一个风洞的建筑里，人们正在创造更加不寻常的东西。一架机器正在“印制”一架复杂的钛合金起落架，大约有一只鞋子的大小，通常须从一块坚固的金属块上艰难地切割下来。起落架只是开始。菲尔顿的研究者有一个更远大的抱负：印制客机的整翼。
Far-fetched as this may seem, many other people are using three-dimensional printing technology to create similarly remarkable things. These include medical implants, jewellery, football boots designed for individual feet, lampshades, racing-car parts, solid-state batteries and customised mobile phones. Some are even making mechanical devices. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Schmitt, a PhD student, has been printing something that resembles the workings of a grandfather clock. It took him a few attempts to get right, but eventually he removed the plastic clock from a 3D printer, hung it on the wall and pulled down the counterweight. It started ticking.
尽管这看起来有些荒诞，但还有很多人正在使用3D印制技术创造同样非凡的产品。这些创造包括医疗用植入物，珠宝，为个人特制的足球鞋，灯罩，赛车部件，固态电池以及为消费者量身定制的手机。一些人甚至在用3D印制技术制作机械装置。在麻省理工学院，博士生Peter Schmitt在“印制”一件类似落地大座钟运行方式的物件。他花了一些功夫，但是最终他成功地将塑料钟从3D印制机里印制出来，然后在墙上挖出相应体积的空间把它挂上。钟开始滴答了。
Engineers and designers have been using 3D printers for more than a decade, but mostly to make prototypes quickly and cheaply before they embark on the expensive business of tooling up a factory to produce the real thing. As 3D printers have become more capable and able to work with a broader range of materials, including production-grade plastics and metals, the machines are increasingly being used to make final products too. More than 20% of the output of 3D printers is now final products rather than prototypes, according to Terry Wohlers, who runs a research firm specialising in the field. He predicts that this will rise to 50% by 2020.
在开始不惜成本斥重资组建工厂生产成品之前，工程师和设计师门已经使用3D印制机十多年，但这大多还是用来更加便捷更加廉价地制作模型。3D打印机已经变得能够处理更广的材料，包括工业生产用的塑料和金属，它也越来越多地用于制作成品。Terry Wohlers经营着一家专攻该领域的研究公司，据他称，如今3D印制机的产出中超过20%是最终产品而不是模型。他预测到2020年这个数字将上升到50%。
Using 3D printers as production tools has become known in industry as “additive” manufacturing (as opposed to the old, “subtractive” business of cutting, drilling and bashing metal). The additive process requires less raw material and, because software drives 3D printers, each item can be made differently without costly retooling. The printers can also produce ready-made objects that require less assembly and things that traditional methods would struggle with—such as the glove pictured above, made by Within Technologies, a London company. It can be printed in nylon, stainless steel or titanium.
使用3D印制机作为生产工具在工业上被称作“加法”制造（与传统的对金属进行裁剪、锥钻、击打的“减法”制造相反）。加法制造的过程中需要的原材料更少，因为3D印制机制由软件驱动，它可以制作所需的不同部件，而不用对每个不同部件进行耗材耗时的更换机械设备。3D印制机复制现成产品需要的组装工序和材料更少，而传统的方法则不能轻易做到——如上图的手套，这是由一家伦敦公司Within Technologies制作的。它可以由尼龙、不锈钢或钛印制而成。
Click to manufacture
轻轻一点，即可制造
The printing of parts and products has the potential to transform manufacturing because it lowers the costs and risks. No longer does a producer have to make thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of items to recover his fixed costs. In a world where economies of scale do not matter any more, mass-manufacturing identical items may not be necessary or appropriate, especially as 3D printing allows for a great deal of customisation. Indeed, in the future some see consumers downloading products as they do digital music and printing them out at home, or at a local 3D production centre, having tweaked the designs to their own tastes. That is probably a faraway dream. Nevertheless, a new industrial revolution may be on the way.
印制部件和成品的技术拥有变革制造业的潜力，因为它降低了成本和风险。生产者不再非要依靠大规模制造来赢回固定成本。在一个经济规模不再重要的世界，大规模生产同质产品也许不再必要或者不再合适，特别是当3D技术使产品的量身定制大量普及成为可能。确实如此，在将来人们会看到，当消费者想要数字音乐产品时，他首先下载相关产品，然后将其在家或者在当地的3D生产中心打印出来，使产品设计符合自己的口味。这也许是一个遥远的梦。但无论如何，一场新的工业革命即将来临。
Printing in 3D may seem bizarre. In fact it is similar to clicking on the print button on a computer screen and sending a digital file, say a letter, to an inkjet printer. The difference is that the “ink” in a 3D printer is a material which is deposited in successive, thin layers until a solid object emerges.
三维印制似乎有些怪异。实际上它类似于点击计算机屏幕上的打印键发送一份数字文件（比如一封信）到一台喷墨打印机。区别就在于3D印制机中的“墨水”是一种存储在一个连续、细薄层面上的物质，最终该物质将被制成固体成品。
The layers are defined by software that takes a series of digital slices through a computer-aided design. Descriptions of the slices are then sent to the 3D printer to construct the respective layers. They are then put together in a number of ways. Powder can be spread onto a tray and then solidified in the required pattern with a squirt of a liquid binder or by sintering it with a laser or an electron beam. Some machines deposit filaments of molten plastic. However it is achieved, after each layer is complete the build tray is lowered by a fraction of a millimetre and the next layer is added.
这些层面由软件设计而成，软件通过计算机辅助设计制作出一系列数字切片。数字切片的描述数据被送入3D印制机中构建出各自的层面。随后各层面以不同的方式迭放在一起。将粉末洒向一个托盘，然后用一小盘液体粘合剂把粉状物按需要的形状进行固化，或者用激光器或电子束管将其烧结成所需形状。一些机器存储塑料熔液的细丝。无论用何种方式，每当一层完成后建造托盘被降低几微米，然后添加下一层。
And when you’re happy, click print 高兴就点
The researchers at Filton began using 3D printers to produce prototype parts for wind-tunnel testing. The group is part of EADS Innovation Works, the research arm of EADS, a European defence and aerospace group best known for building Airbuses. Prototype parts tend to be very expensive to make as one-offs by conventional means. Because their 3D printers could do the job more efficiently, the researchers’ thoughts turned to manufacturing components directly.
菲尔顿的研究者开始用３Ｄ印制机为风洞试验制作模型的某些部分。该研究团队是EADS 创新工作室（EADS Innovation Works）的一部分，而后者是ＥＡＤ的研究部门，ＥＡＤ即以制造“空中客车”而闻名的欧洲国防与航天集团。制作风洞的部分模型单品用传统方法花费巨大。由于他们的３Ｄ印制机可以更高效地做这些工作，研究人员的想法可以直接变成零部件。
Aircraft-makers have already replaced a lot of the metal in the structure of planes with lightweight carbon-fibre composites. But even a small airliner still contains several tonnes of costly aerospace-grade titanium. These parts have usually been machined from solid billets, which can result in 90% of the material being cut away. This swarf is no longer of any use for making aircraft.
飞机制造商已经将很多用于建造飞机外壳的金属替换为了轻质的碳纤维混合物。但是即使是一架小型客机都含有几吨重的昂贵的可用于航天级别的钛。这些外壳通常由金属坯加工而成，其结果是90%的金属材料被废弃。这些金属切屑对于飞机制造毫无用处。
To make the same part with additive manufacturing, EADS starts with a titanium powder. The firm’s 3D printers spread a layer about 20-30 microns (0.02-0.03mm) thick onto a tray where it is fused by lasers or an electron beam. Any surplus powder can be reused. Some objects may need a little machining to finish, but they still require only 10% of the raw material that would otherwise be needed. Moreover, the process uses less energy than a conventional factory. It is sometimes faster, too.
为了用加法制造制作飞机外壳，ＥＡＤＳ首先使用的是钛粉。该公司的３Ｄ印制机将一个２０——３０微米厚的层面铺到一个托盘上，钛粉层在托盘里被激光或电子光束熔化。多余的钛粉可以被回收再利用。一些物体可能需要一些机械操作才能完成，但是需要的原材料仍然只是原来的１０％。值得注意的是，这个过程比传统工厂消耗更少的能源。有时这种方法也更加快速。
There are other important benefits. Most metal and plastic parts are designed to be manufactured, which means they can be clunky and contain material surplus to the part’s function but necessary for making it. This is not true of 3D printing. “You only put material where you need to have material,” says Andy Hawkins, lead engineer on the EADS project. The parts his team is making are more svelte, even elegant. This is because without manufacturing constraints they can be better optimised for their purpose. Compared with a machined part, the printed one is some 60% lighter but still as sturdy.
还有一些其他重要的益处。大多数金属和塑料部件被设计成待加工的样子，这意味着它们可能非常笨重，含有与其功能无关的剩余物，但是这些剩余物对于加工又是必要的。3D打印技术却非如此。 “你只是将材料放在需要的地方就可以了，” EADS计划的首席工程师Andy Hawkins 说。他的团队正在制作的零部件更加精细、轻盈。这是因为没有了制造技术上的瓶颈，材料可以以最优的方式实现目标。与机械加工的部件相比，打印的部件重量要轻60%左右，而且更加结实。
Form follows function 形随功能
Lightness is critical in making aircraft. A reduction of 1kg in the weight of an airliner will save around $3,000-worth of fuel a year and by the same token cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Additive manufacturing could thus help build greener aircraft—especially if all the 1,000 or so titanium parts in an airliner can be printed. Although the size of printable parts is limited for now by the size of 3D printers, the EADS group believes that bigger systems are possible, including one that could fit on the 35-metre-long gantry used to build composite airliner wings. This would allow titanium components to be printed directly onto the structure of the wing.
质轻是飞机制造的关键。客机的重量减轻一公斤相当于每年节省了价值约3，000美元的燃料以及减少了相应数量的二氧化碳排放。因此，加法制造技术有助于建立更加绿色环保的飞机，特别是当客机的1,000多个钛材料部件都可以被打印出来。虽然目前可以印制的大飞机部件的大小受3D印制机大小的限制，但是EADS集团相信更大的印制机是可行的，包括一种印制机，它能够装上35米长的用于制造混合式机翼的台架。这将使得钛制零件可以直接打印在机翼外壳上。
Many believe that the enhanced performance of additively manufactured items will be the most important factor in driving the technology forward. It certainly is for MIT’s Mr Schmitt, whose interest lies in “original machines”. These are devices not constructed from a collection of prefabricated parts, but created in a form that flows from the intention of the design. If that sounds a bit arty, it is: Mr Schmitt is a former art student from Germany who used to cadge time on factory lathes and milling machines to make mechanised sculptures. He is now working on novel servo mechanisms, the basic building blocks for robots. Custom-made servos cost many times the price of off-the-shelf ones. Mr Schmitt says it should be possible for a robot builder to specify what a servo needs to do, rather than how it needs to be made, and send that information to a 3D printer, and for the machine’s software to know how to produce it at a low cost. “This makes manufacturing more accessible,” says Mr Schmitt.
很多人相信。这种想法正合麻省理工大学的Schmitt先生之意，他的兴趣在于“原创机器”。它不是由一堆预先准备好的零部件拼凑而成，而是将设计意图直接创造出来。如果这听起来有些艺术家式的异想天开，那么真实情况是Schmitt先生原来就是德国的一位艺术生，他曾经花时间求教工厂，学习使用车床和模压机制作雕塑。如今他在做的是新颖的伺服机构，它是机器人的最基本构造单元。为顾客定做的比市场上销售的要贵好几倍。Schmitt说，这样做应该是可行的，那就是机器人制造者详列伺服系统所需要做的事情而不是它如何才能被制造出来，然后将信息传送到3D印制机，让打印机的软件计算出如何以较低的价格把它制造出来。“这使得制造变得更加普及，” Schmitt说。
The idea of the 3D printer determining the form of the items it produces intrigues Neri Oxman, an architect and designer who heads a research group examining new ways to make things at MIT’s Media Lab. She is building a printer to explore how new designs could be produced. Dr Oxman believes the design and construction of objects could be transformed using principles inspired by nature, resulting in shapes that are impossible to build without additive manufacturing. She has made items from sculpture to body armour and is even looking at buildings, erected with computer-guided nozzles that deposit successive layers of concrete.
由3D印制机决定其打印出来的产品的形状，这个主意激起了Neri Oxman的兴趣。她是一位建筑师和设计师，领导着一个开发新的制造方法的研究团队。她正在制作一台印制机以探究新设计如何被打印出来。Oxman博士相信，目标产品的设计和构造可以在遵循自然规律的前提下进行改善，其形成的形状不用加法制造的方法是无法制造出来的。她已经制作的产品包括雕塑和盔甲，她甚至将眼光投向了制造建筑物。这种建筑物是由计算机控制的喷嘴浇灌而成，喷嘴内部存有连续的水泥层。
Some 3D systems allow the properties and internal structure of the material being printed to be varied. This year, for instance, Within Technologies expects to begin offering titanium medical implants with features that resemble bone. The company’s femur implant is dense where stiffness and strength is required, but it also has strong lattice structures which would encourage the growth of bone onto the implant. Such implants are more likely to stay put than conventional ones.
一些3D系统使印制的物体的特征和内部结构呈现多样化。比如今年Within Technologies有望开始提供拥有类似骨头特征的钛质医疗植入物。该公司研制的植入股骨头在硬度和力度需要高的地方更加坚实，但同时它也有丰富的格状结构，有利于新生骨头向植入骨头里生长。这样的植入物比传统的植入物更能保持稳定。
Working at such a fine level of internal detail allows the stiffness and flexibility of an object to be determined at any point, says Siavash Mahdavi, the chief executive of Within Technologies. Dr Mahdavi is working on other lattice structures, including aerodynamic body parts for racing cars and special insoles for a firm that hopes to make the world’s most comfortable stiletto-heeled shoes.
Within Technologies的首席执行官Siavash Mahdavi说，能够在如此精密的内部细节上进行操作使得目标产品的硬度和灵活度可以按需要随意而定。Mahdavi博士正在研制另一种格状结构，包括符合气体动力学的赛车外形，以及为希望制造世界时最舒适细高跟鞋的公司制作的特殊鞋垫。
Digital Forming, a related company (where Dr Mahdavi is chief technology officer), uses 3D design software to help consumers customise mass-produced products. For example, it is offering a service to mobile-phone companies in which subscribers can go online to change the shape, colour and other features of the case of their new phone. The software keeps the user within the bounds of the achievable. Once the design is submitted the casing is printed. Lisa Harouni, the company’s managing director, says the process could be applied to almost any consumer product, from jewellery to furniture. “I don’t have any doubt that this technology will change the way we manufacture things,” she says.
Digital Forming是一家与3D印制技术相关的企业，Mahdavi在该公司任技术总监。该公司使用3D设计软件说明消费者定制个性化的产品。比如，它向手机厂家提供这样一项服务，订货者可以在网上改变他们所要新手机外壳的形状，颜色和其他特征。只要可行，该软件可以满足用户需要的任意形状。设计一旦提交外壳立即被印制出来。公司的总经理Lisa Harouni说，这个过程可以应用到从珠宝到家具的几乎所有消费品。“这项技术将改变我们制造产品的方式，我对此深信不疑。”
Other services allow individuals to upload their own designs and have them printed. Shapeways, a New York-based firm spun out of Philips, a Dutch electronics company, last year, offers personalised 3D production, or “mass customisation”, as Peter Weijmarshausen, its chief executive, describes it. Shapeways prints more than 10,000 unique products every month from materials that range from stainless steel to glass, plastics and sandstone. Customers include individuals and shopkeepers, many ordering jewellery, gifts and gadgets to sell in their stores.
还有的服务使个人可以上传他们自己的设计并且印制出来。Shapeways是一家从荷兰电子公司菲利普斯分离出来的纽约公司。去年该公司推出了个性化3D生产，或者像该公司首席执行官Peter Weijmarshausen所说的“大规模个性化生产”。Shapeways每月印制超过10,000件唯一的产品，其材料从不锈钢到玻璃，塑料和沙石。顾客包括个人和商店老板，很多人定制珠宝饰品、礼品和小配件等用来在他们店里销售。
EOS, a German supplier of laser-sintering 3D printers, says they are already being used to make plastic and metal production parts by carmakers, aerospace firms and consumer-products companies. And by dentists: up to 450 dental crowns, each tailored for an individual patient, can be manufactured in one go in a day by a single machine, says EOS. Some craft producers of crowns would do well to manage a dozen a day. As an engineering exercise, EOS also printed the parts for a violin using a high-performance industrial polymer, had it assembled by a professional violin-maker and played by a concert violinist.
EOS是一家德国的激光烧结3D印制机生产商。该公司称其产品已经被汽车制造者，航空企业和生产消费产品的公司用来制造塑料和金属部件。据EOS称，其产品还被牙医用来制作牙冠，每天一次性制造多达450个牙冠，每个牙冠都是量身定制的。而手工制作最多只能做一天十二个。作为一次工程实践，EOS也印制了使用高性能的工程塑料的小提琴零部件，产品已经由专业小提琴制造师组装，音乐厅小提琴手演奏。
Both EOS and Stratasys, a company based in Minneapolis which makes 3D printers that employ plastic-deposition technology, use their own machines to print parts that are, in turn, used to build more printers. Stratasys is even trying to print a car, or at least the body of one, for Kor Ecologic, a company in Winnipeg, whose boss, Jim Kor, is developing an electric-hybrid vehicle called Urbee.
Stratasys是一家坐落于明尼阿波利斯的公司，它制作的3D印制机使用塑料沉淀技术。EOS 和 Stratasys都用它们自己的机器印制印制机部件，反过来这些部件又用来制造新印制机。Stratasys甚至正在试图为一家位于Winnipeg的公司Kor Ecologic印制一辆汽车，或者至少汽车的外壳。Kor Ecologic的老板Jim Kor正在开发一辆名为Urbee的混合电力车。
Jim Kor’s printed the model. Next, the car Jim Kor 的印制模型。下一步，整车。
Making low-volume, high-value and customised components is all very well, but could additive manufacturing really compete with mass-production techniques that have been honed for over a century? Established techniques are unlikely to be swept away, but it is already clear that the factories of the future will have 3D printers working alongside milling machines, presses, foundries and plastic injection-moulding equipment, and taking on an increasing amount of the work done by those machines.
制造低音量，高价值和个性化的零部件都好极了，但是加法制造真的能够与已经磨练了上百年的大规模生产技术同台竞争吗？已有的技术不大可能被淘汰，但是已经很清楚的是，未来的工厂将采用3D印制机同磨床、印刷机、铸造机和塑料注射成型设备等配合使用，3D印制机也将承担越来越多的原来机器的工作。
Morris Technologies, based in Cincinnati, was one of the first companies to invest heavily in additive manufacturing for the engineering and production services it offers to companies. Its first intention was to make prototypes quickly, but by 2007 the company says it realised “a new industry was being born” and so it set up another firm, Rapid Quality Manufacturing, to concentrate on the additive manufacturing of higher volumes of production parts. It says many small and medium-sized components can be turned from computer designs into production-quality metal parts in hours or days, against days or weeks using traditional processes. And the printers can build unattended, 24 hours a day.
位于辛辛那提的Morris Technologies是首批大力投资利用加法制造向其他公司提供工程设计和生产服务的公司之一。最初的意图只是为了更快地制作模型，但是到2007年该公司称它已经实现了“一个正在萌芽的新兴产业”，因此公司成立了另一家名为“快速高质制造”（Rapid Quality Manufacturing）的子公司，子公司专注于利用加法制造技术制造出更多的产品部件。子公司称，很多中小部件都可以在几小时或几天内从计算机设计直接转变为符合生产质量需要的金属零部件，而使用传统工序需要好几天或几周时间。打印机可以在无人参与的情况下一天24小时不间断地工作。
Neil Hopkinson has no doubts that 3D printing will compete with mass manufacturing in many areas. His team at Loughborough University has invented a high-speed sintering system. It uses inkjet print-heads to deposit infra-red-absorbing ink on layers of polymer powder which are fused into solid shapes with infra-red heating. Among other projects, the group is examining the potential for making plastic buckles for Burton Snowboards, a leading American producer of winter-sports equipment. Such items are typically produced by plastic injection-moulding. Dr Hopkinson says his process can make them for ten pence (16 cents) each, which is highly competitive with injection-moulding. Moreover, the designs could easily be changed without Burton incurring high retooling costs.
3D印制技术将与大规模生产的技术在很多领域展开竞争，Neil Hopkinson对此深信不疑。在Loughborough大学，他的团队已经创造了一套快速烧结系统。它使用喷墨打印机的喷头将红外吸收墨水铺在聚合物乳胶粉层，在红外线的热度下乳胶粉被熔结成固体形状。该团队的其他计划中，包括为美国主要冬季运动装备生产商Burton Snowboards开发塑料扣环的制作方法。像这样的产品一般是利用塑料喷铸方法制造的。Hopkinson博士说，用他的方法制作每个扣环只要10便士（18美分），与塑料喷铸方法相比具有很强的竞争力。值得一提的是，改变设计会变得异常轻松，而不用Burton花高成本更换机械设备。
Predicting how quickly additive manufacturing will be taken up by industry is difficult, adds Dr Hopkinson. That is not necessarily because of the conservative nature of manufacturers, but rather because some processes have already moved surprisingly fast. Only a few years ago making decorative lampshades with 3D printers seemed to be a highly unlikely business, but it has become an industry with many competing firms and sales volumes in the thousands.
Hopkinson博士补充到，要预测加法制造多快才能被工业采用有一定困难。这并不一定是因为传统制造业的保守本性，而是因为一些相关技术发展之快令人惊讶。仅仅几年前，利用3D印制机制作装饰灯罩的可能性似乎很小，但是如今它已经成为有众多企业激烈竞争、销售量数以千计的一门产业。
Dr Hopkinson thinks Loughborough’s process is already competitive with injection-moulding at production runs of around 1,000 items. With further development he expects that within five years it would be competitive in runs of tens if not hundreds of thousands. Once 3D printing machines are able to crank out products in such numbers, then more manufacturers will look to adopt the technology.
Hopkinson博士认为，Loughborough的制作工序已经在约1000个产品的生产过程上与传统喷注成型方法可以一较高下了。他预测，随着进一步的发展，在五年内产品项目将达到几万甚至有可能达到几十万。一旦3D印制机器能够生产如此多的产品，那么制造商将有望采用这项技术。
Will Sillar of Legerwood, a British firm of consultants, expects to see the emergence of what he calls the “digital production plant”: firms will no longer need so much capital tied up in tooling costs, work-in-progress and raw materials, he says. Moreover, the time to take a digital design from concept to production will drop, he believes, by as much as 50-80%. The ability to overcome production constraints and make new things will combine with improvements to the technology and greater mechanisation to make 3D printing more mainstream. “The market will come to the technology,” Mr Sillar says.
英国一家咨询公司Legerwood的Will Sillar预测人们将有望看到他所说的“数字化生产工厂”的诞生。他说，这种工厂将不再需要在巨额的设备，步步改进的制作过程以及原材料上投巨资。更重要的是，他相信，将数字化设计从概念到成品的时间将下降50%-80%。克服制造瓶颈和制造新产品的能力将伴随着技术的进步以及推动3D印制技术更加主流的进一步机动化而越来越强。Sillar先生说，“市场的目光将会投向这项技术。”
Some in the industry believe that the effect of 3D printing on manufacturing will be analogous to that of the inkjet printer on document printing. The written word became the printed word with the invention of movable-type printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. Printing presses became like mass-production machines, highly efficient at printing lots of copies of the same thing but not individual documents. The inkjet printer made that a lot easier, cheaper and more personal. Inkjet devices now perform a multitude of printing roles, from books on demand to labels and photographs, even though traditional presses still roll for large runs of books, newspapers and so on.
一些业届人士相信，3D印制技术对于制造业的影响将会与喷墨打印机对于文件打印的影响相媲美。15世纪古登堡（Johannes Gutenberg）发明了活字印刷术，从此书写文字变成了印刷文字。印刷机变成了大规模生产的机器，印刷大量雷同的抄本，而不是个性化的文件。喷墨打印机的出现又使得印刷更加简单、更加便宜，而且更加个性化。如今喷墨打印设备承担了大量打印任务，从待售书书籍到标签和图片，尽管传统的印刷机仍然在印制着大多数的书籍、报刊等等。
A customised future
一个个性化生产的未来
How would this translate to manufacturing? Most obviously, it changes the economics of making customised components. If a company needs a specialised part, it may find it cheaper and quicker to have the part printed locally or even to print its own than to order one from a supplier a long way away. This is more likely when rapid design changes are needed.
3D印制如何变为生产制造呢？显而易见，它改变了生产按需个性化制造部件的经营哲学。如果企业需要某个部件，它会发现，在当地印制该部件或者甚至自己印制而不用从远方的供货商那里订货将既省钱又快捷。需要频繁地对设计进行改变的产品更有可能需要这种技术。
Printing in 3D is not the preserve of the West: Chinese companies are adopting the technology too. Yet you might infer that some manufacturing will return to the West from cheap centres of production in China and elsewhere. This possibility was on the agenda of a conference organised by DHL last year. The threat to the logistics firm’s business is clear: why would a company airfreight an urgently needed spare part from abroad when it could print one where it is required?
3D印制不是西方的专利，中国企业也正在采用该技术。你可能推测一些制造业将从廉价的制造业中心如中国或其他地区重新返回西方。去年由DHL组织的大会上将这种可能提上了议程。3D印制技术对物流公司的生意构成的威胁显而易见：如果企业可以在任何需要的地方印制急需部件，为什么它还选择空运呢？
Our TQ article explains the technology behind the 3-D printing process 我们的TQ article解释了3-D印制过程背后的技术
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of additive manufacturing is that it lowers the cost of entry into the business of making things. Instead of finding the money to set up a factory or asking a mass-producer at home (or in another country) to make something for you, 3D printers will offer a cheaper, less risky route to the market. An entrepreneur could run off one or two samples with a 3D printer to see if his idea works. He could make a few more to see if they sell, and take in design changes that buyers ask for. If things go really well, he could scale up—with conventional mass production or an enormous 3D print run.
也许加法制造最令人兴奋地一个方面是它就降低了进入生产制造业的成本。不用筹集资金设立工厂，也不用寻求国内甚至海外的大规模制造商为你制造某样东西，3D印制机将为你提供走向市场更为便宜、风险更小的路径。企业家可以利用3D印制机制作一两个样品看看他的创意是否奏效。他还可以多做几个看看产品是否好卖，或者根据消费者的要求对设计进行改进。如果一切顺利，那么他就可以用传统的大规模生产方法或者大型3D印制设备进行大规模生产。
This suggests that success in manufacturing will depend less on scale and more on the quality of ideas. Brilliance alone, though, will not be enough. Good ideas can be copied even more rapidly with 3D printing, so battles over intellectual property may become even more intense. It will be easier for imitators as well as innovators to get goods to market fast. Competitive advantages may thus be shorter-lived than ever before. As with past industrial revolutions, the greatest beneficiaries may not be companies but their customers. But whoever gains most, revolution may not be too strong a word.
这意味着在制造业领域获得成功将更少地依赖规模效应，更多地依靠创意的质量。当然，只靠绝佳的创意也是不够的。有了3D印制机，抄袭好点子将变得更快，因此知识产权的争斗将可能更加剧烈。对于模仿者和创新者来说，将产品快速打入市场都将变的更容易。竞争优势由此也变得比以前更加短命。正如以往的工业革命，最大的受益者或许不是企业，而是他们的消费者。但是不管是谁受益最多，使用“革命”这个词都不过分。
2011-2-14 17:40 上传
2011-2-14 17:40 上传
