Hey everyone, 

I will be talking a lot about 3D printing, because in many considerations for our future it is a very essential part. In fact I already mentioned it as one reason why the shared economy is flawed and won’t work.

Now if you read the marketing presentation for what 3D printing is going to look like, it really seems to be the holy grail of futurism and wealth – and all of that in only 3-5 years. 

While the marketing is clearly overstated, 3D printing has enormous potential and we will be seeing a lot of this. 

So I thought it would be a great idea to check the potential of 3D printing in some areas that this blog will cover so we can have a foundation for what I will be talking about in the future. 

Item by item I will go through the potential for 3D printing in the areas of manufacturing, construction, science and education and healthcare.

But first, let’s look at what 3D printing actually is. 

How does 3D Printing actually work?

Now I could be telling you everything myself but I am not the biggest expert on the topic so here is an amazing explanation of the basics of 3D printing, that I recommend you watch. No need to watch the whole video, but the two chapters about 3D printers are great for explaining it.

Now my first thought after watching this is that 3D printing apparently is a lot more limited than you actually think.

And in fact it is.

The application is basically “only” layering ‘2D’ layers to construct a 3D object.

But there are plenty of types of layers, just like in a good sandwich. Harvard Business Review lists basic plastics, photosensitive resins, ceramics, cement, glass, several metals, metal alloys, and thermoplastic composites.

However by looking at the applications it can cover, it actually occupies the exact market spot that it is able to fill excellently.

So let’s go through the applications, one by one.

Manufacturing and 3D printing

How do the likes of Volkswagen, Toyota and perhaps Tesla use 3D printing?

There are a few applications in factories and manufacturies that are even already in use by these very companies.

For example, tools and very precise usables (more or less everything that is not produced in series and has a certain degree of customization falls into this category) can be produced with 3D printers.

Imagine you have a very special screw for your premium product car and well, you mess up and break it. Instead of needing to wait potentially weeks for a restock, upsetting your customers in the process, you just create a new screw out of the 3D printer.

Additionally 3D printers might offer a very neat solution in terms of saving space. You could replace bulk storaging of specialised units with a set of one or a few 3D printers, saving in room and cost. Everything you need you will just produce ad-hoc, giving you a lot more freedom in the production process.

However one thing remains to be said – as of right now I haven’t read of anyone saying 3D printers will print entire cars by themselves (if you have, let me know, and if you know how to, don’t let me know, keep it to yourself and execute until you are a damn billionaire).

In the longer term I can imagine companies offering personalized seats matching the exact size and proportions of the buyer – a seat is not something very difficult to get out of a 3D printer.

And similarly to this, a whole range of personalizable interior items might become available with 3D printing.

This will pair pretty well with autonomous driving.

I’ll give another 5 years until we’ll start seeing things like this come up on the market.

Construction and 3D printing

Ok let’s move to the absolute highroller of 3D printing.

Construction.

In fact I already mentioned the possibilities when I talked about travelling in the future and the potential price drop for tourism it might bring (as if Ryanair wasn’t cheap enough already).

In fact if you boot of your search engine of choice and check for 3D printed buildings you’ll find tons of results, and it seems to be pretty viable to 3D print entire homes (and sell them!), and even whole schools.

In Madagascar an architecture company and the non-profit Thinking Huts are building a school. Thinking Huts is actually dedicated to the purpose of using capabilities of 3D printing for easier access to education worldwide.

And it totally makes sense. 3D printed buildings might well cost a fraction of traditionally erected buildings.

Now.

Imagine how it will change in the future, given that this technology still has a lot of potential and room for even more efficiency.

Maybe think again about that mortgage you were going to request.

But seriously, this technology has the potential to give us a much bigger freedom in the future. You can set up disaster hubs within hours for people that are fleeing from hurricanes or other natural catastrophes (earthquakes, tsunamis). You can create cheap tourism hubs outside of the major city centers therefore not destroying the cities layout and feel, and also not chasing away the locals.

I believe in the future we’ll be seeing a lot more about 3D printing in construction.

Science and Education

Think yourself back into school. Math class.

Your teacher tells you some stuff about some geographic shape and you don’t listen.

Your teacher realises that and goes to the printer, prints out the relevant shapes and discusses the life object. Sounds more interesting doesn’t it?

This and many more scenarios are possible in schools and universities.

You could also create cheap replicas of expensive originals for demonstration purposes and you can design a prototype and test it in real life.

The possibilities are also great in this sector.

Rolls-Royce actually teamed with some students to explore the possibility of 3D printing a jet engine (fun fact time: building jet engines is Rolls-Royce’s core business, not the cars).

So we can expect for 3D printing to break into science and education much more within the next few years. My personal wish is that schools will have this as a standard equipment in maybe 15-20 years.

Healthcare

So I just had to get insoles, I have fairly big (actually giant) feet and have been walking to much in shoes that don’t fit them (honestly, make sure your shoes fit you).

I had to go to a store where they would measure my feet, and then custom insoles would be manufactured manually.

This took more than a week to complete, in this week I have been running around in pain and I couldn’t do any sports.

They are also quite expensive, and I don’t mind spending less (never!).

Exactly usecases like these can be covered with 3D printing in healthcare. Custom size insoles? Custom size hearing aids? Pacemaker? The list goes on and on.

In fact, if you are using hearing aids, chances are they are already 3D printed. Besides cutting generic sizes to custom made aids, manufacturing processes have also been cut down from nine steps to three. There you have it, a real revolution in the making.

The formula is pretty easy around using 3D printing in healthcare. You get more personalization and customization at lower cost and lower production effort.

This part is honestly the part that gets me the most excited about the future, mostly because it is already happening around us and the potential of it is so great.

The Amputee Coalition describes it as a tool for everyone to produce low cost prosthetics for every body part and for various purposes.

And if that isn’t great I don’t know what is.

Wrap-up: 3D printing

Thanks for bearing with me up until this point.

It is a versatile technology so it takes some time to explore some of the possibilities. There are even more that I haven’t yet mentioned.

I would say 3D printing is pretty darn revolutional. We can better our lifes and those of us around us.

One worry I have that comes with construction and 3D printing is that the prices of ground will skyrocket and it will eventually not become that tool for more equality in housing. It might even create a system where you will have to rent a ground, eventually leading us back to renting the way many of us are today.

But this is for another day to explore.

What do you think about 3D printing? Will it change our lives, as I predicted or will it have less of an impact.

Let me know in the comments, per email or on social media. I’ll make sure to come back to you.

Best

Philipp