- Manufacturing Options: 3D printing provides a wide variety of products, including customisable products and even an individual’s personal designs.
- Rapid Prototyping: Products can quickly go from just a design to an actual prototype.
- Manufacturing Speed: Just like the previous advantage, the manufacturing speed for a large number of final products is definitely increased, meaning MORE of the product can be made in a shorter amount of time.
- Reduced Costs: Even though the initial setup cost of a 3D Printer is high, 3D printing has become cheaper than cheap labor in third world countries. Additionally, the costs of 3D printing are still decreasing, with the potential of 3D printers in homes in the near future.
- More Jobs opened: More engineers will be needed to design and build 3D printers, and more technicians will be needed to maintain, use, and fix 3D printers too. Additionally, with the lower cost of manufacturing, more designers and artists would be able deliver their products to the market.
- Medical: One of the best innovative products that 3D printing may provide in the future is the creation of customisable human body parts or organs. While these usages are still in their experimental stages, the potential advantages are huge. Imagine doctors quickly building and replacing critical organs, such as the heart, lungs, or liver that will have almost no chance of donor rejection, since the organs will be built using the patients’ unique characters and DNA.
The Disadvantages of 3D Printing
- Fewer Manufacturing Jobs: As with all new technologies, manufacturing jobs will decrease, because Human workers will start to be replaced by machines that can do the old job "faster and better" in a sense, AND the machines don't have to be paid, it would be a one off fee to purchase them. This disadvantage can and will have a large impact to the economies of third world countries, that depend on a large number of low skill jobs.
- Limited Materials: Currently, 3D printers only create products out of plastic and a few other things. So I suppose the question I'm proposing is what are we going to do when those resources run out?
- Copyright: With 3D printing becoming more common, the printing of copyrighted products to create counterfeit items will become more common and nearly impossible to determine.
- Dangerous Items: 3D printers can create dangerous items, such as guns and knives, with very little or no oversight. With the possibility of people eventually having a 3D Printer in their own houses, dangerous items could be created an there is no way of supervising this...
- More Useless Stuff: One of the dangers of 3D printers is that they will be used to create more useless stuff that is bad for the environment. I read on the web that engineers are trying to develop a recyclable 3D Printing material, so that objects that are not being used can be recycled just as paper can be nowadays!
- Size: Currently, 3D printers are limited with the size of the products that they can create. Ultimately, large items, such as houses and buildings, could be created using 3D printers. But then the cost of those projects would be the main consideration as well as sustainability.
Abi