NASHUA, N.H. - If you’ve avoided thinking about additive manufacturing for fear of fixing what isn’t broken, you’re not wrong. Additive opens up an entirely new realm of possibilities and, depending on your point of view, a Pandora’s Box as well, raising questions and challenging assumptions you might be perfectly happy to leave undisturbed if your plant and business are churning along comfortably and profitably, Dennis Scimeca writes for Industry Week. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
16 February 2024 -Comfort level with existing material choices is a big reason not to look into additive. To be frank, it is unlikely you’ll keep using the same plastics you’ve always used because they probably don’t work in additive machines. But those same plastics also might force you to manufacture heavier or more complicated parts than you actually need to manufacture.
And then the question comes down to who figures out first, you or your competitors, why it’s worth revisiting your material choices and designs if it’s possible for your product.
The first consideration is a big one, however. Your materials are long since qualified and you know darned well the quality metrics of the parts manufactured from those materials. The first step to considering additive is wrapping your head around the materials questions.
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Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics
