The Digital Factory

Last week a large part of the 3D printing industry gathered in Frankfurt to visit Formnext, an immense additive manufacturing trade show. In this episode, recorded in the hallway outside the Formnext show floor, we bring you interviews with three authorities on 3D printing: Joris Peels, editor-in-chief of 3DPrint.com; Nora Toure, founder of Women in 3D Printing, and A. John Hart, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and co-founder of Desktop Metal.

Visit http://bit.ly/2A4XIri to see links and background for this episode.

Computer aided design software is becoming more sophisticated: it’s moving to the cloud, it’s beginning to offer generative capabilities, and, broadly speaking, it’s bringing manufacturing closer to design. In this episode of the Digital Factory Podcast, Jon Bruner talks with Stephen Hooper, Vice President and General Manager of Autodesk’s Fusion 360, about how those developments in CAD software are driving major changes in the practices, roles, and capabilities of product development.

Visit http://bit.ly/2CBs6fQ to see links and background for this episode.

At IMTS 2018, Jon Bruner speaks with Elizabeth Koprucki, Assistant Director of Fab Lab and Design at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, about the importance of giving creators direct access to tools.

Be sure to listen to the other two episodes in this series: #12 with Spencer Wright of The Prepared, and #13 featuring Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan.

Visit http://bit.ly/2ImRLKo to see links and background for this episode.

Jon Bruner speaks with Zach Kaplan, founder and CEO of Inventables, about the importance of accessibility in manufacturing tools.

Be sure to listen to the other two episodes in this series, #12 featuring The Prepared’s Spencer Wright, and #14 with Elizabeth Koprucki from the University of Chicago's fab lab.

Visit http://bit.ly/2ImRLKo to see links and background for this episode.

Jon Bruner speaks with Spencer Wright, author of The Prepared and head of partnerships at nTopology, about what emerged in 3D printing at IMTS this year.

Be sure to listen to the other two episodes in this series, #13 featuring Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan, and #14 with Elizabeth Koprucki from the University of Chicago's fab lab.

Visit http://bit.ly/2ImRLKo to see links and background for this episode.

Jon Bruner speaks with John Dulchinos, Jabil Circuit’s Vice President of Digital Manufacturing. He’s responsible for evaluating new manufacturing technologies and finding ways to apply them in Jabil’s supply chain, and he’s got hard numbers and real experience with many technologies that are still in their infancies.

Read more on the Formlabs blog, and read more of John’s thoughts in the new Digital Factory Report: http://bit.ly/2NkxMSa

Computer aided design, or CAD, has followed the arc of computing over the last 50 years: the first CAD programs were command-line applications that ran on mainframes, which gave way to graphical software that ran on desktop PCs. The next generation of CAD software can run almost anywhere, including in a Web browser or on a phone. As CAD becomes available on every platform, it’s changing the way that engineers and designers work by bringing more people into contact with CAD and by making handoffs between teams more fluid.

Read more on the Formlabs blog:

http://bit.ly/2OTACKR

We speak with Stefanie Brickwede, who runs the additive manufacturing program at Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s rail operator and an international logistics powerhouse. We discuss the company’s applications for 3D printing, how she’s approached cultural change around additive manufacturing within the organization, and what’s next for 3D printing in the rail, automotive, and air transport industries.

Brickwede is a keynote speaker at the Digital Factory conference on May 14 in Munich. See the full schedule and register at https://digitalfactory.xyz.

Visit the Formlabs blog for episode links: http://bit.ly/2HOw8Cj

Most people who design 3D printed objects want them to keep their shape as closely as possible after printing, but an emerging field known as 4D printing aims to make objects that can reconfigure themselves after fabrication.

In episode 8 of the Digital Factory Podcast, we speak with Kristina Shea, professor of Engineering Design and Computing at ETH Zürich, on why self-assembly and 4D printing could be foundational design technologies in the very near future, with applications from aerospace to medical devices.

Read more on the Formlabs blog: http://bit.ly/2GYCNM4

Product assembly is a big factor in production time, labor cost, and complexity. 3D printing can be used to consolidate multiple parts into a single part that couldn’t be produced conventionally, but most products still need at least some assembly. Fasteners are fiddly and snap-fits are fragile. An emerging solution: advanced adhesives, applied with automated machinery—a step toward fully digital assembly. Listen for advice from Michael Todd, head of innovation at Henkel Adhesives, on picking the right adhesive for the right application—and for insight into how adhesives are advancing digital fabrication. Read more on the Formlabs blog: http://bit.ly/2FY5MMk