Whitepaper Courtsey of MakerBot®
High-end industrial 3D printers have been available for years, but their high cost and need for specialized operations expertise relegated them to service bureaus, either run internally or available from outsourced partners. Because the technology was at arm’s length and available at a premium, engineers remained judicious in their use of 3D printing, enlisting it at the end of the design process for validation and testing of physical prototypes, and for production of short-run parts.
While there are well-documented time and cost savings benefits associated with the traditional use case, a new generation of professional-grade, affordable 3D printers presents an opportunity for even greater value.
