HP Innovation Journal Issue 03: Summer 2016 | Page 5
U
ntil the rise of the Industrial Revolution, Approaching the perfect storm
hand-crafted one off design and man-
ufacturing was the norm. Blacksmiths Over the next 10 to 15 years socioeconomic
were both designer and manufacturer; each pair forces, advanced design and production
of horseshoes they crafted was unique, even innovation, and highly automated printing
when made for the same horse! Production was processes will intersect to create a massive
slow and things were made
to order. Save for a few high
3D Transformation
value items like coffee, tea
and spices, products were
rarely if ever made in ad-
vance, inventoried and ready
for sale. Supply chains for
manufactured goods were
piecemeal.
Pre-
Industrial
Internet
3D
But that changed in the
Industrial
Revolution
Transformation
18 th century with the rise of
the machine and the First Driving the next industrial revolution through the democratization of design
and ubiquitous production
Industrial Revolution. Textiles
went from being hand-spun, to woven with transformation of design and manufacturing.
a spinning wheel and loom, leading to faster
As we discussed in the last issue o f the
production time with lower cost material. The HP Innovation Journal, how and where we
introductions of the weaving loom, cotton design, sell and manufacture products will
gin, steam engine and factories to assemble continue to become both hyper-global and
product changed the very nature of how things hyper-local thanks to a globally connected
were made.
world with a diverse set of local require-
Over a period of roughly 75 years—late ments. Production will move closer to the
1700s to the mid-1800s—production became consumer, with local 3D-print service bureaus
increasingly standardized. Each task from design throughout the world, thus accelerating
to manufacturing and assembly was broken product delivery, reducing carbon footprint,
down into discrete functions. Henry Ford’s and simplifying logistics and inventory man-
Model T took things to a new level at the start agement. How those products move from
of the 20th century, gaining speed and efficiency design to production to those 3D printing
with the introduction of mass production and hubs will become easier, smarter and faster.
factories. New materials and methodologies
Until recently we’ve been designing prod-
from metal casting to injection molding helped ucts for the 3D world in which we live, using
to produce most of the products around us to- 2D design and compute tools. We’ve been
day. With refined workforce and manufacturing largely unable to bring our physical inspira-
practices, and the computer automation of tions into our digital design process. Sprout
previously manual labor-intensive tasks, things by HP marks a first step to overcoming that
have continued to be produced faster and in obstacle, enabling
larger quantity throughout the past century.
Despite all this, the basic design and manu-
facturing process hasn’t fundamentally changed
over the past 100+ years. In fact, not only have
the processes not improved but they’ve put
a substantial strain on our natural resources,
pushed production farther and farther from the
consumer, and constrained design flexibility and
customization.
us to bring 2D and 3D objects directly into
our product design workflow—allowing
designers to manipulate and work with those
objects using their hands—seamlessly blend-
ing our physical and digital worlds.
Democratizing
design and
manufacturing
Ultimately the success of
this end-to-end transfor-
mation will rely heavily
on the printing of the final
product. With 3D printing
Next
comes the move from the
Industrial
Revolution
traditional manufacturing
process to additive manu-
facturing. In the simplest of
terms that means rather than manufacturing
mostly 2 dimensional parts and assembling
them together to make a product, you add
New HP Jet Fusion 3D printer
layers of material thus building a product
from the ground up with minimum or no
assembly and more dimension.
With the introduction of HP Jet Fusion 3D
printers being showcased at drupa 2016,
based on a disruptive HP Multi Jet Fusion tech-
nology, new levels of 3D production speed
can be achieved,
Part sample printed with HP Multi Jet Fusion technology; ©Krasul
Issue 3 · Summer 2016 · Innovation Journal 5