Digital manufacturing is rapidly changing the fundamentals of how products are developed, scaled and manufactured. By digitizing traditional manufacturing methods, including injection molding and CNC machining, and leveraging newer technologies, like 3-D printing, the industrial internet of things (IIoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), companies are optimizing their supply chains, reducing development cycles, increasing efficiencies, and driving down costs. The Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to gain traction and is completely changing the economics of manufacturing, for those willing to embrace the change that is.

Digital manufacturing is enabled by multiple manufacturing methods, but one area that has really grown has been industrial 3-D printing. Over the past decade, additive manufacturing technologies have really grown from hobbyist applications to industrial-grade equipment capable of producing engineering-grade, end-use components.

Additive manufacturing not only enables the creation of new products but is also influencing design. For example, if an engineer had complete design freedom for a plastic injention mould, how might he or she design it to accomplish the cooling step and reduce overall costs for the manufactured product? Redesigning the interior channels to cool the plastic more effectively might enable them to make a smaller mould and reduce process and material costs. They might also look to 3-D printing to consolidate and reduce the number of components and individual processes involved in their creation. Therefore, the real benefit of additive is really in the design freedom and assembly reduction, which unlocks tremendous opportunities in designing what previously was just un-manufacturable.

As manufacturers accept and implement new technologies into their operations, downstream processes often need to be adjusted to accommodate the type of work that then comes down the pipeline. One example is additive manufacturing or 3D printing. While many of the first commercial 3D parts were for specialty aerospace and medical applications, the technology slowly but surely has crept into much broader manufacturing settings, including the mold and die industries. Because of the unprecedented nature of 3D printing, these adjustments touch all areas of machining processes. 

Workholding

One of the most basic considerations before a technician prints a 3D part is how subsequent processes are affected by early workholding decisions. One factor that complicates these decisions is the great variance in 3D printers. Some additive machine manufacturers come from the machine-tool world and have quickly leveraged that experience to provide easy solutions just as they would with a traditional CNC machine. Conversely, those that have led innovation specifically in 3D printing often have less experience with questions pertaining to workholding and so may require more ingenuity to strategize secondary operations.

Naturally, one trend that is taking root quickly is for traditional tooling suppliers to partner with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for machines to provide integrated solutions. With validated systems at the OEM level, it is possible for tooling manufacturers to make the secondary operations just a little less laborious. Alternatively, for machinery without an established tooling solution, it may be possible to produce tombstones or other custom fixtures to expedite the setup process, though these would be less transferable from one operation to the next. For example, a part that requires both wire EDM removal and sinker EDM finishing likely would not be able to use a tombstone for both.

Moreover, operators should be aware that because 3D printing is not a perfectly accurate process, virtually all applications would still benefit from the inclusion of reference or datum surfaces for more accurate pickups.