Take a look at just about anything around you and there’s a good chance that it’s made in China.
And if it’s not, there’s a good chance it’s being COPIED in China.
But in the future, with the advent of industrial 3D printing, just about everything around you will be made in your home state or even home city.
The sales of Industrial 3D Printers are expected to rise to over $18 Billion by 2021.
But for this video, we are going to zero in on 3D Metal Printing Technology which will be the centerpiece of a new industrial revolution!
The global manufacturing industry is almost $13 TRILLION DOLLARS which means that 3D metal Printing Tech and 3D Printing Tech at large has the potential to be the most disruptive technology since the PC!
But before we talk about that, let’s quickly cover how 3D metal printing works.
First, a design is created using a drafting program.
Next, the printer receives instructions prints the product using very thin layers to metallic powders and binding substances.
We’re talking very thin layers around .1 mm thick.
It’s a lot more complex than that but this technology is groundbreaking and is improving rapidly!
And this brings us to Desktop Metal one the most exciting startups in the world.
The desktop was founded exactly 3 years ago in October 2015 by a handful of MIT Material Science and Engineering Professors, and what they’ve done in just 3 years is absolutely remarkable!
In just 3 years, Desktop has filed 100 Patent applications involving around 200 inventions.
They’ve grown from a handful of MIT Professors to 226 employees, 90% of them engineers.
In 2018, they’ve won numerous awards including Digital Trend’s emerging tech award.
And even more impressive is that they have raised $277 million in venture funding from major companies, such as Ford, BMW, and GE Ventures, making Desktop the fastest company to reach a value of $1 Billion in US History, just 21 months after its founding.
But what makes them so special?
Well, Desktop has been developing massive 3D Metal Printers that are truly revolutionary.
The printers are almost 2 meters tall and almost 5 meters long and will be able to print 100 times faster than existing high-end Printers at 1/20th the cost!
The printers can produce products out of a variety of metals, including various types of steel, aluminum, and copper.
With Desktop’s technology, parts and products will be cheaper, lighter and more efficient than ones manufactured by traditional printing methods.
Even more exciting is that parts will be produced much faster!
Parts that usually take hours to fabricate will take mere minutes!
In the time it would take produce 12 airplane propellers using current printing methods, Desktop printers can produce 560!
Lumenium, an engine manufacturing start up is an early adopter of Desktop’s printers cut the production time of their saddle carriers by 43% and reduced the production costs from $980 to $148!
So aside from making products faster and cheaper, this technology will allow products to be ordered on-demand without a minimum order, and consumers will be able to customize their orders in ways that would normally be too expensive to be practical.
Industry experts believe even planes and cars will be 3D printed in the future.
This technology will allow factories to be smaller to allow them to be located anywhere in the world regardless of labor conditions.
What can we expect from Desktop and the 3D Metal Printing Industry at large?
So far, the early adopters of 3D Metal Printing have largely been the Aerospace, Bio-Medical and Jewelry industries, but we should expect to see wider and wider adoption in the next 5 to 10 years as the technology improves and becomes more affordable.
Desktop has already sold over 350 printers to major companies including Caterpiller, Ford, and Google and they have a backlog of orders worth over $120 million!
And Desktop Metal is just one company on a large list of 3D metal Printer manufacturers.
There are at least 24 other companies developing 3D Metal Printers ranging from other start-ups to big names like HP who recently launched their Metal Jet Technology.
So as all of these companies compete against each other, the technology should continue to improve rapidly.
And while mass adoption of 3D Metal Printing Technology won’t happen overnight but in the future, just about everything around you will be made in a small Factory Near You...
