3D printing has come a longer way in its origins in the 1980s, with a brief entry to the consumer space galvanizing its growth in the earlier part of the decade. It looks as though mass production with additive manufacturing technology is just around the corner, as a number of companies start methods for 3D printing. There is a strong one in the industry that mass production is the next higher thing in 3D printing. 2019 will be the year that manufacturing travels from prototyping to full production in the automotive industry.
In the move to full production, 3D printing enables the automotive industry to do swifter, leverage flexible manufacturing, reinvent supply chains, create new markets and produce new parts in new ways that were impossible previously.
HP aims to play a dominent role in this evolution with its Metaljet 3D printing technologies and Multijet Fusion (MJF). They are designed for large batch production. The company has seen BMW make use of MJF to create one-millionth 3D printing part, a guide rail for the BMW i8 roadster. BMW was able to 3D print to 100 of the parts in 24 hours. Hence, we will see an increase in real-time supply chain traceability.