Chapter 1
Seeing How 3D Printers Fit into Modern Manufacturing
IN THIS CHAPTER
Getting to know additive manufacturing
Discovering applications for 3D printing
Introducing RepRap
An amazing transformation is currently under way in manufacturing, across nearly all types of products — a transformation that promises that the future can be a sustainable and personally customized environment. In this fast-approaching future, everything we need — from consumer and industrial products to food production and even our bodies themselves — can be replaced or reconstructed rapidly and with very minimal waste. This transformation in manufacturing is not the slow change of progress from one generation of iPhone to the next. Instead, it’s a true revolution, mirroring the changes that introduced the Industrial Age and then brought light and electricity to our homes and businesses. This third Industrial Revolution is all part of a much wider change in fully automated and intelligent-assisted global manufacturing, linking into what's now being called “the circular economy” or “Industry 4.0.”
For a ...
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