Digital manufacturing – Comparison of technologies
New product development and design is a process of iterative search. It is nearly impossible to design a product in a way so that it can be mass-produced and sold straight from the drawing board. Each product goes through various stages of development and it is gradually tuned, tested and changed before the product finally succeeds in the market.
3D printing is one of the technologies that often accelerates this process and is highly beneficial. But it is not always the most suitable approach for all stages. There are other technologies of digital fabrication and it is good to know their pros and cons. We prepared a comparison of attributes of three basic approaches in digital fabrication – additive manufacturing (3D printing), subtractive manufacturing (CNC machining), molding and casting.
