This article comes from http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/reshor/rh-spr97/proto.htm and post by Lea McLees.
SPEED AND ACCURACY are the hallmarks of successful, profitable manufacturing in the 1990s. Products that miss target market dates or bear unanticipated design flaws can cost manufacturers dearly in lost sales and development investments, giving competitors an advantage.
And the window for meeting target market dates is shrinking, notes principal research scientist Tom Starr.
"Today, products can miss their markets if they are even six months late," says Starr, a researcher in Georgia Tech's School of Materials Science and Engineering.
Leon McGinnis, professor of industrial and systems engineering, agrees.
"Companies today can't afford to make mistakes when they are bringing products to market," he says.
Rapid prototyping and manufacturing (RPM) technologies hold vast potential for ensuring quickly designed, precise products. These methods allow prototypes -- and perhaps one day, the products themselves -- to be built quickly from computer-aided design (CAD) files using photochemically sensitive resins or other materials. Rapid prototypes are ready within hours or days of design; conventional prototypes can require weeks or months to build or mold.
RPM offers monetary savings, as well. Pratt and Whitney's Rapid Prototyping and Casting Laboratory in Connecticut reported in 1995 having made 2,000 RP castings at a cost of $600,000 to $700,000 -- a savings of $6.4 million, when compared to the $7 million that would have been spent using conventional prototyping methods.
But the availability of RPM technology doesn't guarantee its productive use. Education and experience are necessary, and, as with any technology, RPM could be enhanced with further research and development
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