How small manufacturing companies can take advantage of additive manufacturing

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Dave Pierson, a senior product development engineer at MAGNET, part of the Ohio region of NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership, wrote in a blog that additive manufacturing can provide significant ROI to SMMs (small to medium-sized manufacturers) by helping them:

• Improve their industrial tooling processes.

• Produce more high-value, low-run parts.

• Create highly customized products for their industry and their customers.

• Conduct more cost-effective prototyping for R&D processes.

According to Pierson, aerospace and medical manufacturers are already realizing AM’s ROI benefits. “Today, a growing number of smaller manufacturers are using it to transition to a more digital inventory, where you can support 40 parts that each have different SKUs versus 5,000 parts with the same SKU,” he wrote.

Strategic-minded manufacturers are turning to AM to compete with larger players in their industry, he continued, noting that most SMMs have a lot of questions about how the technology can deliver value in both the short term and for the long haul. The most common questions are about which applications can benefit from AM, whether the technology shortens lead times and cuts production costs, and whether additive can be used to repair high-value parts more cost-effectively than other processes.

Pierson provides detailed answers to the questions, along with examples that illustrate his points.

Click here to read the entire blog.

Dave Pierson