ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
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.
A STRATEGY GUIDE
We have made a guide where we worked with 4 different companies on product development of existing or new products.
The purpose of this strategy guide is opening a new avenue for innovative, small organizations to thrive in a world led by an advanced manufacturing paradigm. Startups and small businesses are the main source of innovation and should be able to capitalize on information
and build competitive business models regardless of capital investment. We strongly believe that 3D printing is the key to bringing these organizations to an agile manufacturing mode that will provide answers to our greatest sustainability challenges. If you are interested in
the content of AM Maker, get in contact with us or the Danish AM Hub to receive more information.
Of special interest is the potential to substitute environmentally damaging supply chains with locally sourced 3D printed designs.
This means being able to produce configurable products that adapt to local needs without waste, or products that use designed
metamaterials that perform the functions of imported components. All this, without additional investment or partnerships across the world. However, we have learnt that in order to create these products it is necessary to take a step back and relearn the way 3D printers bundle our resources, products, and strategies.
To watch the videos click on the images below or go to our YouTube-channel.
Below the videos you can read more in depth descriptions about each video.
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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 end of the course, the participating entrepreneurs printed a vision for their own ventures where they became change agents that used Additive Manufacturing to bring us a step closer to a more sustainable future.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Project lead: Rasmus Emil Tofthøj Jakobsen
rasmus@maker.dk
