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Automation As A Service is already here and growing in some forms and will be a major market for semis and their automation. This will allow companies that can't afford or have the talent to concentrate and compete on their fields of expertise. For the big players, this trend will allow them to grow at a vastly accelerated rate spreading their costs over a growing ecosystem. Everything from making physical objects and handling business functions to advanced research will be automated, spreading costs for companies that can't afford the needed ecosystem or justify the economics. This will be about creating numerous opportunities for many that didn't exist. This trend already has come in some forms and is in its very early stages.
Companies that lead this change we have already seen doing this have prospered mightily, and as it is extended to more areas, the speed of everything is going to accelerate. Those that don't make use of it will fall into irrelevance. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
I have a close friend who maintained high end industrial equipment and worked at a facility where they needed a specialty part that took weeks for their machinist to make, and he sent the prints by wire to a 3D printing company that made the part overnight and had them delivered the next day. For this, he was rewarded by having his car vandalized by workers at the in-house machine shop. He quit.
I have a close friend who maintained high end industrial equipment and worked at a facility where they needed a specialty part that took weeks for their machinist to make, and he sent the prints by wire to a 3D printing company that made the part overnight and had them delivered the next day. For this, he was rewarded by having his car vandalized by workers at the in-house machine shop. He quit.
They have been 3D printing metals by various processes for years. Even if they can't in this case they can use it as a mold and do it in less than a day. I worked as a pattern maker and left because I could see 3D printing changing the field radically and it did. I had almost talked the owner of the pattern shop into buying one of the first GE 3d printers to make patterns and the older journeymen told the owner I was crazy. Years later one of them apologized to me for he told me the US had lost the business because of this and many just didn't have the vision to see it.. The owner of the shop had the money and was going to do it, until the old timers told him I was nuts. At the time a 3d set up was in the high six figures or over a 2 million in today's dollars.
The metal is still glued together. Casting metal parts isn't going away.
These parts are expensive. I'm really good with my hands and use common sense and many times I had to clean or touch up a part. Workmanship isnt going away.
The metal isn't cast, it's sintered. They do it with a laser, I'm sure you can see this process online, I showed it to the machinist next door to me ten years ago. Laser sintering has advanced much since then. I'm sure you could google it and see for yourself.
The metal isn't cast, it's sintered. They do it with a laser, I'm sure you can see this process online, I showed it to the machinist next door to me ten years ago. Laser sintering has advanced much since then. I'm sure you could google it and see for yourself.
Thanks for the background Arthur. Must check out metal sintering. I discovered a few years ago that people had been cutting metal for quite some time with very high speed water jets (instead of milling machines). We sometimes assume that this sort of production technology doesn't really change much (especially since most of us don't get to play with such machines since leaving college) - but it clearly does.
