Additive advance: measurement helps additive techniques into manufacturing

High-speed measurement technology is helping to integrate 3D printing into mainstream manufacturing

After years of hype, additive manufacturing techniques that build products layer by layer are starting to become more commonplace in shop-floor production, as well as in the design office. They are already producing a step change in the way certain customised products are made, for example, medical implants and bespoke aerospace components. However, 3D printing remains largely separate from conventional subtractive machining and, as a result, a long way from becoming part of automated assembly lines.

Part of what’s holding additive techniques back is the historical tendency for them to be enclosed in their own 3D-printer boxes, according to Dr Jason Jones, co-founder of Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (HMT). The best way of creating a product might involve both additive and subtractive manufacturing and this might mean moving it from a milling machine to a 3D printer and perhaps back again to finish the additive surface. But HMT has commercialised a technology that combines the two approaches
in one set-up.

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