Examining Innovation and Technology: 3D Printing in Aircraft Manufacturing - Essay Example

Examining Innovation and Technology: 3D Printing in Aircraft Manufacturing Table of Contents 3 Introduction 3 Brief Historyof 3 – D printing Technology 4 Overview of 3 – D Printing Technology 4 Why 3 – D printing technology is advantageous as compared to traditional Manufacturing processes. 5 How 3 dimensional printing Works 6 Is 3D printing technology Disruptive innovation or Sustaining Innovation? 7 Crossing the Chasm 9 Disadvantages of 3 – D printing technology in its application 9 References 11 Examining Innovation and Technology: 3D Printing in Aircraft Manufacturing Abstract There is currently a tight race going on to produce aircrafts efficiently, effectively, and at the cheapest price possible while maintaining a quality and safe product. Boeing and Airbus are the key players vying for the aircraft manufacturing market share. One of the keys to being able to produce the cheapest product possible is being able to work with suppliers to get the best price available on parts and tools needed to build the aircraft. Currently both major aircraft manufacturers utilize many different outsourced manufacturers to produce the parts and tools needed to build their world class aircraft. Many of these parts and tools could potentially be built cheaper in house with new disruptive technology such as 3D printing. Introduction Since the entry into the 21st century, there has been magnificent revolution in the way machinery and components are manufactured. New technologies have been introduced which have rendered the old manufacturing technologies obsolete, thus leading to their extinction. Recently, there has been the introduction of the 3 – D printing technology in the manufacturing industries. This technology is otherwise known as stereo lithography or additive manufacturing. The introduction of the technology has changed the perception of manufacturing industries. Previously, manufacturing industries were synonymous with machining tools located in factories, economies of scale, and production lines. The introduction of the technology has changed the perception in that manufacturing is perceived without the thinking about assembly lines, machining tools and and/or supply chains. This has attracted various manufacturing industry players including corporate departments, small businesses, and even individuals. The use of the 3 – D printing technologies has enabled individuals to make such things as tools, appliances and different type of machine parts in the workshop or at workplaces. This is as simple as the creation of a 3 – D model, modifying an existing model, or downloading an already created model then printing just like one would print a normal word processor document. Brief History of 3 – D printing Technology The introduction of 3 –D printing is dated back to year 1982 when Hideo Kodana first published an account on printing 3 – Dimensional models. This was followed by the first production of a 3 – D printer by Charles Hull in the year 1984. This introduced three dimensional printing to the world and since then, several researches have been done on the technology with an aim of making the technology cheaply available and for large scale manufacturing (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). There has been interest in acquiring the technology which include manufacturing of aircraft parts, the use of the technology in medicine among other fields. This research paper, Examines the disruptive technology of 3D printing on the aircraft manufacturing industry from the standpoint of the aircraft manufacturers, part/tool suppliers, and airline customers (Roebuck, 2011). Overview of 3 – D Printing Technology Traditionally, the manufacture of plane parts has been dependent on the Fused Deposition Modelling technology (FDM technology). This technology is largely used in the part manufacturing process, prototyping and tooling. The FDM technology is considered to be time consuming and expensive. To counter this, various companies have resorted to acquiring 3 – D printing technology which, if well designed, has the potential of being superior to FDM. Some of the plane manufacturing industries that have embarked on acquiring the use of 3 - D printing technologies include Boeing, and Airbus. Another company that has embraces the use of 3 – D printing technology is General Electric. The company has invested in the technology to facilitate the manufacture of more than eighty five thousand fuel nozzles using 3 – D printing technology (General Electric, 2014). According to the company’s website, the manufacturing of nozzles which usually involves assembly of more than twenty different parts will be done by 3 – D printing technology which will manufacture the same fuel nozzle a using one single metal that will form successive layers. The company considered the technology since it (technology) is considered to be very efficient in facilitating the creation of designs that otherwise would not have been created by traditional technologies. Moreover, the finished product is stronger and lighter as compared to the same product being produced using the traditional manufacturing processes (General Electric, 2014). Why 3 – D printing technology is advantageous as compared to traditional Manufacturing processes. Since the infiltration of 3D printing in the technological world back in 1984, it did not gain much attention until the 1990’s. Currently, 3D printing is one of the most interesting advancements in the world of design (Isakow, 2014) (Menken, 2012). It therefore has several advantages and disadvantages as illustrated below. One advantage of 3D printing is the possibility to combine different raw materials. Traditionally, this is not possible since it is costly due to the different physical and chemical combinations which make it quite tricky to implement. With 3D printing, this issue has been solved especially due to the dependence on plastics and constant innovation due to enthusiasm by 3D enthusiasts. The innovation leads to production of unique finishes with the look and feel of ceramics, glass or metal having a variety of temperature resistance (Isakow, 2014). With 3D printing, many complex figures can be created by the 3D printer as opposed to the traditional ways of molding and cutting which are limited in terms of shape and complexity. The 3D printer nozzle is capable of printing several complex figures which are only confined to a person’s imagination. Virtual designs can be taken from CAD (computer aided design) or from animation modeling software (Roebuck, 2011). Companies that use 3D printing can save up to 70% in the production cost. This comes along as a result of low shipping and packaging costs due to cheaper and more reliable raw materials, a less workforce demand and overseas parts suppliers. Using this technology is also quicker compared to the traditional means. Traditional methods can take up to two days for complete production whereas 3D production does the same job in a couple of hours. This results to saving on production costs due to the “on-demand manufacturing model” (Roebuck, 2011). How 3 dimensional printing Works The initial stage in the printing of the 3 – D object is the creation of the design by creation of the 3 – D image of the object to be printed using CAD software. The CAD software produces hundreds of layers of the object. The layers are eventually constructed by the printer on top of the other successively to create the object. Basically, 3 – D printing facilitates creation of models of things from computers then printing the model just like in the 2 – D printing technology. To print a 3 – D model, the 3 - D printer basically converts the created design into 2 – D slices that are independent. The slices are then joined together to form the complete 3 – D structure. There are various methods that are used in the printing methods (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). In the first method of printing 3 – D models, there is the use of chemicals that are responsive to laser light. When laser light is shown on them, the chemicals turns to a solid. The laser is designed to move across a layer of liquid chemicals. As the laser moves, the drawing is made. The completion of the first layer is followed by lowering the made solid to allow creation of a second solid layer which is deposited on the surface of the first layer. This process is repeated whereby thin layers are created over each other until the required structure is attained. The laser is then utilized in the solidification of the printed structure (Menken, 2012). In second method of printing 3 – d models, there is the use of molten ink. The molten ink is designed such that when it emerges from the printer head, it turns into a solid, i.e. it solidifies. The design are drawn out by the link in thin layers. The thin layers are drawn over the surface of the preceding layer until the required structure is formed. To finalize on the design, powder materials which are bounded together by a glue or in other instances heated to fuse them together, are applied to make the solid design. Several types of materials are used in the 3 – D printing technology. This include nylon, plastic, biodegradable plastic filaments among others. Is 3D printing technology Disruptive innovation or Sustaining Innovation? To determine if 3 – D printing is either disruptive innovation or sustaining innovation technology, the definitions of both the disruptive and the sustaining technology will be considered. A disruptive technology is defined as the new technologies that plays an important role in creating a new market and value. On the other hand, sustaining technologies are technologies that does not result in the creation of new market and value but rather the technologies aids in evolving the existing technologies by adding more value, giving the industries using the technologies more power to compete effective (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). Considering the above definition of disruptive and sustaining innovation, it can be concluded that 3 – D printing technology is a disruptive technology. Why the 3 – D printing technology is classified as Disruptive technology. As earlier connoted, manufacturing industries have been associated with factories, economies of scale, factories and machine tools. But the introduction of this technology is projected to change how industries work. This is due to the fact that manufacturing will be done without thinking of such things as supply chains, machining tools and assembly lines. Manufacturing of various components is projected to be done easily and this will be range from individuals, corporate departments and small businesses carrying out manufacturing processes (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). Moreover, the use of 3 – D printing technology is considered to be more convenient, cheaper, simpler and smaller as compared to traditional manufacturing technologies. Furthermore, the 3 – D printing technologies brings manufacturing technology to industry players that initially had limited access to the manufacturing services. This include individuals and small businesses. The main consideration in choosing the material to be used in the manufacture of planes includes the durability of the material, the lightness of the material, and the corrosive resistance among others. The availability of such materials is faced with various barriers which include high material cost, low quality, throughput capacity, and size limitations. The solution to this problems lies in the adoption of 3 – D printing materials. The adoption of this technology will completely wipe out the traditional manufacturing process hence removing the associated manufacturing barriers. This is another reason why the technology is considered as a disruptive technology (Menken, 2012). Crossing the Chasm Several plane manufacturing companies have invested in 3 – D printing technology to replace the traditional manufacturing process. Some of this, as it had been stated earlier include Boeing, airbus and general Electric. The acquiring of the technology was due to its promising utilization in various plane manufacturing applications. More farms are considering acquiring the technology. General electric, an aeroplane parts manufacture has acquired this surface and it’s mainly targeting to provide its services to plane manufacturers such as Boeing, and airbus. The acquisition of the 3 – D printing technologies is mainly by the vertical approach which is followed by the horizontal approach. The acquisition of the vertical approach then the horizontal approach is the most effective method. The strategy in this method is to acquire the services in bits and once the niche is saturated with the company’s services, the expansion now changes to a horizontal technique whereby more efforts are put in place to influence the other players in the same niche (Menken, 2012). The acquisition of the 3 – D printing company should follow a well-defined criteria, otherwise, it may collapse. These defined critters include i. Monitoring material consistency and density to interpret the advancements. ii. Monitoring the production speed of a single unit iii. And finally, monitoring of the feedback costs. Disadvantages of 3 – D printing technology in its application Despite the fact that there are many positive impacts of the 3 – D printing technology, there are disadvantages which are however associated with 3D printing. One major problem facing this technology is the manufacture of dangerous weapons. It is possible to get anything on the internet nowadays and this includes even designs for dangerous weapons. If the designs are exposed to the wrong people who may be having the 3D printer, manufacture of dangerous weapons is inevitable and this will increase insecurity levels. Production of 3D printers in large numbers could see many people lose their jobs since the printers will act as a replacement to the cheap labour. Although in the long run this is advantageous to the company, the people who lose their jobs may find it hard to shift to another industry since most of them are acquainted with this skill only (Roebuck, 2011). Credit cards, car keys, ID’s and other crafted materials can be scanned and duplicated using 3D printing. This makes it easier for criminals to increase the rates of fraud and scam. Copyrights of 3D printed products can be violated by printing other counterfeit products with the easy to use 3D printers which can be acquired easily. It is usually almost impossible to differentiate between the real products and the counterfeit ones. Another limitation associated with 3D printing is size. Currently, the available 3D printers are limited in terms of size and therefore cannot print large items such as buildings (Lipson & Kurman, 2013). References General Electric. (2014). GE Uses 3D Printers to Make Jet Parts. Retrieved from General Electric Website: http://www.geglobalresearch.com/blog/ge-uses-3d-printers-make-jet-parts Isakow, C. (2014). Bring Your Idea to Life with 3D Printing. BlogIntoBook.com. Lipson, H., & Kurman, M. (2013). Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing. Indina: John Wiley & Sons. Menken, I. (2012). 3D Printing Complete Certification Kit - Core Series for It. Emereo Pty Limited. Roebuck, K. (2011). 3d Printing: High-Impact Emerging Technology - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors. Emereo Pty. Limited. Read More