Lecture 3

Question 1

Give 2 examples of the primary and secondary markets for AM

Answer 1

Primary market

• Products (e.g. materials, AM systems, software etc.)
• Services (e.g. parts produced by service providers,
  maintenance contracts, conferences, consultancy etc.)

Secondary market

• E.g. tooling produced via AM
• Parts produced from this tooling

Question 2

if all chimps are champs and all champs are chumps, is an AM system costing $4,999 classed personal or industrial?

Answer 2

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Industrial (>$5,000 systems)

Personal (<$5,000 systems)

Question 3

Soon Patent expirations will either bring in an influx of new companies or they will be squashed by the big guys. Name the three biggest guys.

Answer 3

Stratasys/Objet, 3dsystems, EnvisionTec

Question 4

How is the market expanding?

Answer 4

Fairly linearly with an equal split between products and services.

Question 5

How is the market expanding?

Answer 5

Fairly linearly with an equal split between products and services.

Question 6

Name 2 possible outcomes AM could experience as a result of global hype.

Answer 6

More companies beginning to use AM, therefore we
may expect the market to keep expanding

Possible disillusionment when it can’t do ‘everything’

Question 7

10-15 years ago, the idea of using AM for direct part production was pretty much non-existent…
And yet now, ~30% of AM parts are produced in this way.
Give the 2 main reasons why producing these parts was thought of as fit for prototyping only

Answer 7

Quality of parts, economics of processes

Question 8

How good is your understanding of the number of unit sales pertaining to the use of each unit produced? (In terms of production, types of prototyping, patterns, and any other uses)

Answer 8