Additive manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology that creates, for the first time, an opportunity for small businesses to fabricate highly technological products. Therefore it has the potential to change the way we create businesses and strategy, but more importantly, the way small companies can become champions for the much needed sustainable transition.
We collaborated with four companies to develop innovative products using 3D printing (AM), aiming to empower small businesses and startups. This guide highlights how AM can drive agile manufacturing, reduce waste, and localize supply chains, enabling sustainable production without major investments.
By rethinking how 3D printers handle resources and strategies, small organizations can create configurable, eco-friendly products that meet local needs. If you're interested, contact us or Danish AM Hub for more information. Watch the videos below or visit our YouTube channel for deeper insights.
Introduction to AM
First, we need to explore the meaning and application of AM complexity freedom for sustainable entrepreneurship. We explore complexity freedom from 3 different lenses: system, digital, and material lenses.
Together, the three perspectives will place companies on the verge of technological development by giving them tools to reinterpret their products and business models.
The tool set was tested in a five week course, where the entrepreneurs had access to a workshop and printers to reinvent their products and propose a future scenario for their businesses, based on more sustainable 3D printing. By the course's end, participants crafted a vision to become change agents, using AM to advance a more sustainable future.
The systems lens
The complexity available in 3D printing gives us the chance to include an almost infinite amount of elements in the printing space, but what should we include?
In this workshop we introduce our tool deck to examine our product-business bundle from five different systemic perspectives.
How does information and resources flow through it?
Do these relationships change through time?
Who are the most important stakeholders?
This workshop provides a starting point for entrepreneurs to portrait sustainable scenarios where single products become networked systems.
The digital lens
AM gives entrepreneurs the chance to design products and business models where complexity is not built by adding physical components along a global supply chain, but rather digitally.
Therefore, each entrepreneur faces the question of, what to digitalize?
This workshop presents tools that complement product design and development computationally. With the help of these tools, it is possible for entrepreneurs to impregnate the system lens into digital versions of their products and capitalize on complex opportunities.
The material lens
3D printing technologies exist in a broad range of materials and processes, from plastic desktop printers that cost a couple of thousand kroner, to robot arms that melt pulverized titanium worth millions.
While differences among processes would suggest that more expensive is better, this workshop focuses on exposing how each level can be exploited effectively if the printer and material are understood properly.
Moreover, it highlights the potential of plastic printers to contribute to circular business models based on recycling. By the end of the workshop entrepreneurs will be able to better interact with the printer and exploit the properties of materials available to them.
The sustainable print
After working with the three AM lenses, the last workshop introduces an environmental prospection tool to evaluate current market offerings and portrait future opportunities.
In this workshop we look at possible scenarios and create a roadmap using the tools explored through the 3 lenses. We set up a design sprint to create a printed version of the sustainable opportunities found through our scenario exercise.