Wow we're already in week 13! The official last week of school. I thought last week of hectic but this week seems to be even more so, with more things due and project presentations and homework!
Time really flies when you're in Uni because every week there's so much to do and each week just passes by so quickly. Our next challenge is to do well in the final papers which i have 5 papers this semester! So I have pretty much to study..
Okay so enough of blabbering, this week is similar to last week's class. The only exception is that I'm presenting this week! My group's topic is on Safety technology in automobiles.
This is our group's website: http://www.wix.com/2011twc/cars
I would like to start off by saying i'm really really proud of my group with a good job on the website. It is really really nice and i'm satisfied with our work.
I'll talk about my experience and the difficulties we faced while doing this project.
First thing every group is supposed to ideally have at least an IS student but due to the small size of our group, there are limited IS students. And so, my group is one of the few without any IS students. This proved to be a challenge because we need to learn how to build a website without anyone teaching us.. and here's the catch.. on top of all the work we need to do. Fortunately, wix.com is pretty easy to learn, credits to it for being quite user-friendly, but nevertheless, it still took my group a significant amount of time trying to figure out how to do this or that. This made me think of a future possible technology of using mind control to build a webpage where you just need to have the idea and your website will be designed out.
Next, one of the difficulties we faced is the choosing of topic. Yes, there are alot of topics to choose from. But when you narrow down to topics which our group at least have some background knowledge on, topics that can be researched and collect much information, and topics that must be interesting not only to us but also our peers are they are, after all, the ones that is going to grade our presentation. We started off with energy and found it too broad as there are many forms of energy and within each form of energy, there are many other technologies. Hence, we decided to narrow down to water technology. We did some research on it and found that it was too vast to cover still. There is too much work to be done and it would be difficult to cover every part of it. Also, the technologies are not really interesting with the usual hydropower or newater. So we decided to change our topic as we believe we should do topics where we can go for quality instead of quantity, which means the topic cannot be too generalized. Hence, after browsing, throwing our many ideas on what topics we can do, we decided to do on Safety technologies. We initially wanted to do air, land and water. But air and water we tried to research on the safety technologies which we found to be quite limited. However for the land side, particular cars, there are many areas we can cover and hence we decided to zoom in and do our group project on Safety Technologies in automobiles.
Although, it had been difficult, I've learn pretty much how to design and create a website although i'm still not a fan of it. Our group presentation went pretty well in my opinion and i'm still really proud of my group. A great job on the website! It's really cool and concise.
Well i'll stop here for my group presentation part and talk a little about my reflection on this TWC module. TWC is second class I've ever attended in SMU. From someone who "doesn't really know much" about technologies(notice the inverted commas), I have grown alot in this past 13weeks. This is a really interesting lesson for me as I learnt many new things and perspective that I never knew or would not pay attention to. One of the reason i really liked this class is because there is not many technical terms used in here, unlike other classes where you're introduced to many many new terms everytime and is expected to learn and understand every single one of them. This less stressful way ultimately allows us to learn more and absorb more. What we learn in this class can be used forever, throughout our lifetime. Other technical classes where we need to memorize, we'll probably forget them the day after our final exams. I think we just can't have the best of everything and it needs to balance out.
Overall, I really enjoyed my journey in this TWC class. Also, one point is that my class is small, with only 20+ people compared to other classes with about 45 people. I really like a small class size as it can make the class more comfortable, more time to share everyone's own perspective and the pace of the class does not have to be very fast. I've always wondered in other classes with 6 presentations compared to our class where we have 2-3 presentation per class, it must be really fast pace.
I've learnt alot in this module and enjoyed myself. I want to extend my sincere thanks to prof for making our class such an interesting one and sharing all his interesting and insightful perspective on everything.
And yes, this is going to be the last post for this blog(unless prof wants to give more bonus marks for more journals :D) hence it is exceptionally long.
I rate this class 10/10 for being such an awesome and interesting one. :)
Till next time ...
Cheers! :)
Thursday 10 November 2011
TWC 11th lesson!!
It's the last second week of the class. This is really a hectic week for me with pretty much of projects deadline coming adding on top of the pile of homework that needs to be done.
Today's lesson is mainly on presentations where 3 groups will talk about their web report.
However, I would like to first talk about an interesting quote shared by Prof at the start of the class.
"Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.”
Today's lesson is mainly on presentations where 3 groups will talk about their web report.
However, I would like to first talk about an interesting quote shared by Prof at the start of the class.
"Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.”
This means that if you understand something, you’ll be able to put the concept in simple words. If you can’t do it and have to explain in complicated terminologies, it’s highly likely that one does not truly understand it. I have the exact same thoughts when i was in secondary school. I always believe explaining something in technical term is difficult to understand and students may find it hard to grasp. When i really understood something my teacher was teaching back then, if i was about to understand it and my peers don't, i'm able to explain them in simpler terms that is easier to understand. Hence, I believe textbooks should be as simple as possible in order for people to learn easily.
On the group presentation part, generally i think all the websites are really well done, especially the first group that does Technology and the Arts. Their website was really well done, informative and included many pictures as well. We can see considerable effort put into the making of the webpage. Seeing all the groups with their completed websites (well after presentation there were a few more improvements to be made), i realized my group's website is quite far from the norm. I dedicate this to the absence of anybody with prior webpage design knowledge. We have lots to do and improve on for our website and hope we can do a good job next week during our presentation! :)
Overall, this lesson was educational, allowing us to know slightly more in depth to a few topics covered by the different group. However, it was pretty monotonous during some parts of the lessons.. but it was good overall. :)
I rate this class 8/10.
Cheers! :)
Sunday 30 October 2011
TWC 10th lesson!
An irony I realized in Uni is we're all looking forward to Friday but at the same time dread that time passes so fast and there's so much left to do.
Okay so.. today's topic is Technology Assessment and Forecasting; Developing a Framework for
Understanding What Comes Next. Basically this is a continuing lesson from last week's lesson on future technologies. This lesson is discussing what are the "impossible" technology that can actually be made possible in say in 10 or 20 years. As with one of my favorite quotes, "We are only limited by our own imaginations." Many technologies are either already there or just need longer period of time to research and improve on. We looked at a couple of things that could actually surface in the next maybe 5-10 or 20 years.
Okay so.. today's topic is Technology Assessment and Forecasting; Developing a Framework for
Understanding What Comes Next. Basically this is a continuing lesson from last week's lesson on future technologies. This lesson is discussing what are the "impossible" technology that can actually be made possible in say in 10 or 20 years. As with one of my favorite quotes, "We are only limited by our own imaginations." Many technologies are either already there or just need longer period of time to research and improve on. We looked at a couple of things that could actually surface in the next maybe 5-10 or 20 years.
One particular technology is augmented reality. With technology evolving such as iPhone, we have come to a stage where we can actually use our phones to scan our location or barcodes. Scanning of barcodes allow us to check prices online and in other departmental stores. An interesting thing is there is actually an innovative idea used in Japan where people can buy stuffs in the subway by scanning the item's code using their smartphones. Payments will be made and the item would be delivered right to their doorsteps supposedly in about 15mins time. As this particular technology gradually comes into use, it could reduce rental costs as people just need to showcase what item they have for most products. They don't have to display them and saves lots of space too. As this technology continues to evolve and be exploited, we could have some portable device that makes use of augmented reality and contains all our cards like ez-link card, credit card, or even "house keys"if next time we use scanning method instead of the traditional lock and key method to secure our homes.
Another technology coming is artificial intelligence. A particular part we touched on regarding artificial intelligence is on robots. Robots have been anticipated for a long time now and it seems to be emerging pretty soon. As discussed in the last lessons, Japan's solution to their decreasing population is the use of robots, estimating to use more than 3million robots to take over simple tasks in the next 5-10 years. My personal thought is that robots are cool, they can help us do simple tasks in everyday life and will have other functions such as in "SIRI" in the new iphone 4S where it can help us to send messages or to make reservations. However, there are problems like some people may use them as destructive tools. In addition, I believe we'll be quite not used to robots in our lives and meeting robots out on the street when robots are just incorporated into our everyday lives. Artificial Intelligence is continuously improving over the years and it is going to surpass human brain someday. I wonder if that is good or bad.
We spent some time in the class talking about impossible technology prediction in the past. One particular technology that caught my interest is the art of teleportation. It is one of the most desired technology most people in a developed country would want, especially in Singapore. With the population growing, buses and mrts are overly crowded especially during the peak hours. If you drive in a car, the road conditions are just as bad during the peak hours. Imagine if teleportation is made possible, imagine the time saved. Not only we no longer need to squeeze with other people on the buses or mrts, we actually can spend the time saved on other things. My personal thought on this is the majority of us spend an average of 2hours traveling daily, 1 hour to and 1 hour fro. That is nearly 10% of our lifetime. If we live to 90 years old, we would have spend about 9 years traveling. Not forgetting about 7 hours sleeping which translate to about 1/3 of our lives sleeping which using the same 90 years old lifespan, we spend 30 years sleeping. 30+9=39 years out of 90 years pretty much wasted. Not a pretty picture but yes that's a fact. Hence, teleportation is one of the top few things on the technology I want most. The time saved would be really precious and we would have significantly more time daily to do the things we want.
Overall, today we also viewed many videos, mostly short clips but all the same, the videos are interesting too. Today's lesson is pretty good except I would probably like more discussions, more actual views that people may have. More discussions in class would be good. I rate this class 8.5/10.
Cheers. :)
Friday 21 October 2011
TWC 9th lesson!
We’re in our week 10 already! It seems school just started but no, this semester is ending soon! All the works are piling up!
Okay.. back to the main topic. Today’s lesson is one of the more interesting ones where we discussed on emerging technologies. The topic for today is emerging and future technologies.
An interesting point from today’s lesson is in this world we need both types of people, a dreamer and a person who applies the knowledge.
The norm when we ask people what type of person they want to be and the most probable reply would be they want to be the dreamer – innovator. However, we need both types of people in our world. We can’t apply the innovation without someone with knowledge. There is no innovation if we don’t have dreamers. So both must co-exist in order for the world to progress.
Following the quote from Albert Einstein,
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
It is true that imagination or innovation is more important than knowledge. Anybody who is innovative would be a rising stars. On the other hand, a person not as innovative but is knowledgeable might not be deemed to be a falling star. Application of knowledge is important as well. First, different people have different amount of knowledge. Second, different people have different ability or potential to apply the amount of knowledge they have. Hence, the more knowledge and the better a person can apply the knowledge, they more probable they are deemed to be a rising star.
We also talked about some new and emerging technologies.
An example is robotics. An interesting point is that Japan’s is one of the most developed countries in the world yet the population of Japan is decreasing. The problem they are facing is that there might not be enough people for all the jobs in Japan. The solution they came up with is by introducing robots to take over some of the mindless jobs. One of it is the diverting of traffics using robots. This although is a good solution causes tension to arise as other countries might be unhappy that they do not open up their market to foreign countries (talents).
This coupled with artificial intelligence system has a dark side to it where people may use robots to harm human beings. U.S. is already developing droids as weapons and looking into the future, if people continue to develop in this area, it may be devastating.
Today lessons comprise of quite a number of short videos and all of them are pretty interesting. One video about an emerging technology that I’m pretty interested in is plastic taking over most of the materials like silicon. The plastic produced can be used in many areas like a plastic electronic notebook where it is flexible and breaks less easily compared to glasses. The plastic can be used for many things such as maybe spectacles, the screen for laptops or notebooks or televisions, or maybe even in racket sports taking over silicon rackets and replacing with equally strong but lighter plastic rackets.
Overall, this lesson is pretty interesting as there are many interesting ideas of emerging technologies. It would be exciting to see many new technologies take place over the next few decades and truly, we are only limited by our imaginations. I rate this lesson 9/10 for an interesting lesson. J
Wednesday 12 October 2011
TWC 8th Lesson!
Believe or not.. Recess week is wayyyy busier than school term week.. there's not enough time to catch up on all the projects.. not to mention to study and revise the topics taught so far..
okay.. first TWC class after recess week, my 8th TWC class.
Today's topic is on: Energy and World Change. We touched briefly on the past of energy and the class mainly focused on renewable energy and if it was the desired outcome of the future.
First, let's start off with the KEY takeaway for today's lesson.
"If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singaporean and U.S. resident, the world's oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years."
Notice the italic part. This is ironically funny because everyone of us are pointing fingers at the U.S. for using 30% of the world's resources when their population only makes up 5% of the world's population yet we Singaporeans are just as guilty of the high usage of resources. Maybe we should start looking at our habits and start conserving some energy!
Moving on, one interesting thing point is currently, our world's oil reserves can last for another 40 to 60years. According to statistics for year 2008, renewable energy makes up 19% of Final Energy consumption while 78% makes up of Fossil Fuel.
Our aim is to be totally dependent on renewable energy sources like wind and hydraulic energy by 2050.
In my opinion, it is quite impossible. My view is that it is possible to make up for about 50-60% of the world's energy sources. The main factor is that our world's population is still growing at a fast pace. It is projected to grow another few billion, estimated to reach about 9.5billion. With higher population, the energy usage will naturally go up. Also, with the development of countries, their expectation and demand for energy sources will increase as well. I believe the increase in renewable energy is not enough to accommodate the increase in population and the increase in demand for energy.
Another interesting point is that the sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in an entire year. If only we can fully capture this energy sources, our worries about energy sources depleting would be over! Maybe we should start looking at how to capture the energy from the sun(solar power) more efficiently.
Renewable energy sources are everywhere.
Above the ground: Sun, Wind, Water, Biomass, Waves
Below the ground: Coal, Lignite, Oil, Gas, Geo-thermal, Uranium
There are actually many sources of renewable energy. I believe if the world aims to work towards a greener direction together, we could have easily done it. The problem with it now is that hardly anyone is feeling the anxiety or the significance of the depletion of natural resources.
Germany is currently the world's strongest investor in renewable energy, particularly solar energy.
They have thousands of solar panels that supply them with millions of watts of energy.
Their aim is to be self sufficient on energy. Their target was producing 20% of the energy on their own by 2020. It was deemed to be an impossible task when this idea was just introduced. However, their policy has been so effective that this is a highly possible target now and they could even potentially reach 30% self-sufficient on renewable energy.
So how does the government does it? Through Cash incentives.
The government enable people to sell the energy they "harvest" from sources such as solar panels. For example, the government pays them 50cents when they only buy the same amount with 20cents. This allows people to earn a small profit margin by investing in renewable resources. I think this is rather an effective policy as there is incentives for people to innovate in the aspect of renewable energy. The government may be paying at a "losing" rate in terms of monetary in the short run but in the long run, it is definitely more cost-effective and allows them to be self-sufficient.
Overall, I think today's class is pretty interesting and i rate it 8.5/10. :)
Cheers!
okay.. first TWC class after recess week, my 8th TWC class.
Today's topic is on: Energy and World Change. We touched briefly on the past of energy and the class mainly focused on renewable energy and if it was the desired outcome of the future.
First, let's start off with the KEY takeaway for today's lesson.
"If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singaporean and U.S. resident, the world's oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years."
Notice the italic part. This is ironically funny because everyone of us are pointing fingers at the U.S. for using 30% of the world's resources when their population only makes up 5% of the world's population yet we Singaporeans are just as guilty of the high usage of resources. Maybe we should start looking at our habits and start conserving some energy!
Moving on, one interesting thing point is currently, our world's oil reserves can last for another 40 to 60years. According to statistics for year 2008, renewable energy makes up 19% of Final Energy consumption while 78% makes up of Fossil Fuel.
Our aim is to be totally dependent on renewable energy sources like wind and hydraulic energy by 2050.
In my opinion, it is quite impossible. My view is that it is possible to make up for about 50-60% of the world's energy sources. The main factor is that our world's population is still growing at a fast pace. It is projected to grow another few billion, estimated to reach about 9.5billion. With higher population, the energy usage will naturally go up. Also, with the development of countries, their expectation and demand for energy sources will increase as well. I believe the increase in renewable energy is not enough to accommodate the increase in population and the increase in demand for energy.
Another interesting point is that the sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in an entire year. If only we can fully capture this energy sources, our worries about energy sources depleting would be over! Maybe we should start looking at how to capture the energy from the sun(solar power) more efficiently.
Renewable energy sources are everywhere.
Above the ground: Sun, Wind, Water, Biomass, Waves
Below the ground: Coal, Lignite, Oil, Gas, Geo-thermal, Uranium
There are actually many sources of renewable energy. I believe if the world aims to work towards a greener direction together, we could have easily done it. The problem with it now is that hardly anyone is feeling the anxiety or the significance of the depletion of natural resources.
Germany is currently the world's strongest investor in renewable energy, particularly solar energy.
They have thousands of solar panels that supply them with millions of watts of energy.
Their aim is to be self sufficient on energy. Their target was producing 20% of the energy on their own by 2020. It was deemed to be an impossible task when this idea was just introduced. However, their policy has been so effective that this is a highly possible target now and they could even potentially reach 30% self-sufficient on renewable energy.
So how does the government does it? Through Cash incentives.
The government enable people to sell the energy they "harvest" from sources such as solar panels. For example, the government pays them 50cents when they only buy the same amount with 20cents. This allows people to earn a small profit margin by investing in renewable resources. I think this is rather an effective policy as there is incentives for people to innovate in the aspect of renewable energy. The government may be paying at a "losing" rate in terms of monetary in the short run but in the long run, it is definitely more cost-effective and allows them to be self-sufficient.
Overall, I think today's class is pretty interesting and i rate it 8.5/10. :)
Cheers!
Draft for Individual Topical Review Paper
Technology Innovation: 3D printing
Executive Summary
Technology is all around us, be it smartphones, the Internet or automobiles. Over the years, innovation has sparked many new technologies that impacted a major part of our lives. One particular up and coming technology is 3D printers or 3D printing. 3D printing is what we call a disruptive innovation where it will have a multi-faceted impact on our world. Not unlike how CD taking over cassettes or how telephones taking over telegraphs, 3D printing is going to change how things work in our world.
3D printer is going to be the next trillion-dollar industry and is potentially the biggest change in how we make things. The disruption of 3D printing will most probably be felt in the manufacturing industry first, followed by other areas such as healthcare or food.
Currently, 3D printing is still not largely used due to its high cost and most manufacturing companies already have their machines used for mass manufacturing. However, price of 3D printers are falling now due to increased number of competitors trying to produce affordable printers.
With 3D printers becoming more affordable, it’ll lower the barriers of entry to the manufacturing sector. It’ll also be cheaper to produce goods locally with 3D printers instead of offshoring to other countries due to the savings on transport costs and there isn’t a need to purchase costly machines that only carry out limited processes. With 3D printers, the idea of large production line will become increasingly irrelevant.
In this paper, we will analyze the feasibility of 3D printers in our world and the impacts it could impose.
In first part of the paper, we will be looking at what 3D printing is and how it was introduced followed by we’ll discussing about the implications of the introduction of 3D printers on various key areas. The second part we will be discussing about challenges of 3D printing as well as some prospects into the future and finally the conclusion.
Introduction
“ Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did…. Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750 – or the printing press in 1450, or the transistor in 1950 – it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches. ”
- The Economist, in a February 10, 2011 leader
The above gives us an idea on the impact 3D printing is going to have on our world. Ever since the moving production line was introduced, our world has been revolving the concept of economies of scale. With 3D printers, it will change the world into economies of knowledge where people will integrate 3D printing into their systems.
Charles Hull introduced the technology of 3D printing in 1986. In the past, to obtain a product model to be manufactured, you will need to get a group of architects or model makers to craft one using hand. It is costly, time-consuming, complicated and techniques are limited. However, 3D printing is a technology that not only simplifies the process, saving time and money, but also expanded the horizons as more complex objects can be produced.
3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. The concept of 3D printing is uncomplicated.
3D printing involves a couple of steps:
1) Push your design into a computer aided design software tool where the application divides the image into many layers.
2) Once initiated, the 3D printer will produce a layer of the model using the material in a powdered form, solidifies it and continue to print a higher layer of the model.
3) The process continues until the entire model is created from bottom up.
4) The residual powder covering the finished model has to be dusted off and the product model is printed.
The time involved depends on the height and weight of the model. As time goes on, technology of 3D printing gets improved and the time required printing a model decreases.
Although 3D printing was introduced in the mid-1980s, it was not largely used due to the high costs. In recent years, as the price of 3D printers plummets, it is becoming increasingly relevant as companies began to exploit its capabilities. We will now explore on the effects of the introduction of 3D printing.
Positive Observations
Implications on Traditional Manufacturing
3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process.
In the 20th century, the manufacturing industry has been dominated by the idea of mass production. The moving production line came to be an emblem of the new manufacturing era, generating torrents of products and food for a new mass market of consumers. Ford Motor Company sparked it off by using an assembly line to produce cars, where parts are put together in a moving production facility, introducing the idea of mass production. Other businessmen saw potential in this method of production and quickly copied the concept. Hence, mass production technique was born. However, this era is ending sooner than we expected. 3D printing is going to and will be revolutionizing the mass production model.
Traditional manufacturing involves the concept of subtractive manufacturing, where blocks of raw materials are cut and mold into the desired products. This method has its limitations where intricate designs are difficult to produce or is costly to produce. It mainly focused on producing goods at low cost and of mediocre quality. As compared to 3D printing which uses the concept of additive manufacturing, 3D printing can manufacture models or parts in such an intricate or precise way that could not possibly be made by hand in one piece, even by the most skilled engineers or craftsperson. 3D printing gives the freedom of technology to designers, removing the constraints of traditional manufacturing – the kind of products we can make and the designs of products. This would further expand the realms of the engineering world or architecture world where designs known to be impossible to attain are now feasible.
Mass production involves producing outputs continuously to cover the cost of the machines. Products are often sold in bulks by economies of scales in order to sell a greater quantity of products and attain higher revenue. This usually ends up in both the manufacturer and firms holding a large amount of inventory that increases the risks of the business. On the other hand, 3D printing does not exploit on the concept of mass production and hence does not need to produce goods in large quantity. 3D printers are significantly cheaper than the traditional manufacturing machines and are able to create products in a single build process. With the reduced pressure in covering the costs of machinery, manufacturers can now produce the amount of goods that firms need and does not have to stock up too much. This reduces the inventory level and lowers both the cost and the risk of the business.
Implications on Consumers
It is commonly agreed and fully believed in the 3D printing industry that every household is going to have at least a 3D printer at home, where it is capable of printing any solid object, and even the basic mechanical objects. For example, if someone needs a bowl or cup, they just have to press a button and it will be printed out. It has reached a stage whereby we can customize the objects we print out. We can choose the color and the design we want to print on our products. For example, we can print a red bowl or a green cup. We can also print a stripy bowl or imprint our pictures on the cup. The program would be easy enough to be used and would provide a fairly extensive customization.
As we can see, it is going to change the lifestyle of households to a certain extent where people become more self-sufficient. They can easily print out the things that they want and can even choose the design for the things. This would essentially make the lives of people more convenient where we don’t have to go out to a convenient store nearby to buy the basic things that we need. Instead, we just print whatever we need.
Using 3D printers as a form of manufacturing saves time and cost for manufacturers, which translate into cheaper products for consumers. Traditional manufacturing – mass production starts off with creating samples, then purchasing extensive machines and carrying out processes such as molding, machining, casting and forming.
Creating samples can prove to be very time-consuming and can be very costly for manufacturers. The time taken to produce a prototype can range from days to months. First, there are limited tools to create the prototype. Also, the process has to be repeated if the sample needs to be improved on until finally, the desired product is created. The cost in creating the samples involves the cost of the required tools and the wages and salaries of the employees during the period. The usage of 3D printers will drastically cut down these costs as the prototype can now be created in a matter of hours and repeating the process is easy. It will also replace the expensive machines used for manufacturing and eliminate the traditional manufacturing processes involved. This will effectively drive down the cost of production drastically, saving up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Studies have shown that usage of 3D printers can save concept development time by about 50%, production time about 90% and production costs up to 90%. All these savings in the cost of production allow companies to be more cost-effective and translate into cheaper goods for consumers. Consumers can now enjoy higher quality products at a cheaper cost.
Implications on the environment
3D printing is a greener technology as compared to traditional manufacturing. There are two major aspects on how 3D printing is more environmental friendly. Firstly, it produces minimal waste or no waste. Secondly, it minimizes transportation of goods thereby reducing pollution.
Mass production creates mass waste; 3D printing creates minimal waste. This comes down to the intrinsic concept of how things are produced. Mass production adopts the method of subtractive manufacturing or some call it destructive manufacturing. The idea is starting out with a large block of material and carving away pieces of it. A good example will be the aluminium Macbook shell. Similar concepts are used for many other productions. The question that comes to mind is where all the excess material leftover from carving the product goes. They are simple thrown away as waste. Current manufacturing processes create as much as 90% waste. This is the reason why mass production produces so much waste. If we look at OECD statistics we can see that under Environment: waste, manufacturing in these OECD countries actually takes up a large proportion of the waste generated, producing about 600million tonnes of waste. This is just the amount of waste generated by the more developed countries. It does not include other less developed countries such as India and China who are significantly contributing to the world’s waste level as well. Hence, we can see the amount of waste traditional manufacturing is producing and this is especially detrimental to the environment. Apart from being eyesores and generating bad odors, improper waste management can lead to serious health hazards or invite host of problems like increasing number of insect vectors like flies or rats.
Conversely, 3D printing adopts the use of additive manufacturing. The idea is adding successive layer on top one another instead of molding it out of a block of material. Less material is used and less waste is produced. Studies have shown that on average, 3D printing produce 26 times less waste of material than standard manufacturing. 3D printing replacing the traditional production method will benefit the environment by using just the amount of material needed to construct each part and hence the amount of waste produced will be reduced greatly.
A large proportion of pollution derived from mass production is actually during the transportation of the goods. Transportation of goods has a massive impact on the environment. Due to globalization, products are outsourced and offshored to different parts of the world where mass production will take place. Mass production involves transporting goods between a few countries to tool different individual parts or to distribute to the different supply chains. Pollution, dominantly air pollution, plays a significant role in polluting the environment in the process of transportation of the goods globally. However, 3D printing makes it possible to produce goods locally minimizing all the transportation. Only the raw materials or printing materials will be transported to the local suppliers and production is localized to the community. 3D printing minimizes the transportation of goods and effectively reduces the amount of pollution produced. It is a greener technology compared to other manufacturing options available.
Bounded by a low cost production paradigm, manufacturing companies are unwilling or unable to adopt newer greener technologies. 3D printing provides them the ability to be both cost-effective and green at the same time.
Implication for healthcare
3D printing has emerged into the medical field. Being one of the first few industries to embrace 3D printing, experts see a bright future of its application in the medical industry. Some examples are construction of bone grafts, organ or body part printing or tissue engineering. The rational behind the application of 3D printing is based on two main reasons. Firstly, 3D printing is a precision tool where it can achieve high accuracy. It is able to attain an accuracy of up to 0.1 millimeters. This is very important as everybody has a unique body structure and hence requires customized organs or body parts of varying shapes and sizes. Secondly, there is an increased need for organ transplant as people keeps living longer. Studies have shown that over the past decade, the number needed for transplant has double but the number of organ donors remained the same. Thus, 3D printing revolutionizes the healthcare sector by expanding the realms of the medical field.
Currently, Biotechnology firms and academic are studying the use of 3D printing in tissue engineering where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. The process of printing the organs or body parts starts off with scanning a 3D image of the organ. Tissue from the patient is used to seed the printer and additive manufacturing takes place over a span of six to seven hours. A good example of the application of this technology is Dr. Anthony Atala using similar technology and produced an engineered bladder for one of his patient and it has been functioning perfectly since. This shows that printing of human organs or body parts is indeed possible although this technology is not quite ready to be used yet. In an early-stage attempt, Dr. Atala successfully printed a kidney using body tissues incorporating this 3D technology although it was not yet functional.
As we can see, the use of 3D printing in the medical field, producing human organs and body parts, is not a pipe dream. In time to come, this technology will be able to do things like scanning an open would and replacing new skin on patients using their body tissues as well. 3D printing has proved its importance in the healthcare sector and no doubt has the capabilities to help save lives.
Challenges
Unemployment
Karl Marx warned “the production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.” As time goes on, this trend is becoming increasingly obvious where machines and artificial intelligence are replacing human labor.
3D printing is manufacturing without workers. It is sometimes referred to as a “jobless industry”. True to its name, 3D printers would certainly destroy many assembly line jobs that require intensive human labor. 3D printers also simplify the multi-step tedious processes involved in manufacturing into a single build process. This will further drastically reduce the labor required in the manufacturing industry resulting in unemployment. In the short run, the key issue will be structural unemployment.
Besides government intervention by implementing policies to increase the number of jobs, not unlike other disruptive innovations, there is a chance the economy may restore itself as new industries will be created and new jobs will be created. For example, new businesses may be formed that sells “plans” for an object. They will be selling 3D designs or blueprints rather than the product itself. People buying the designs gives them the “rights” to print the product from 3D printers, be it at home or at a localized store. This would increase the importance of innovation, as there is no doubt that other businesses would “steal” their idea once it has been released. As more businesses start up, there would be more jobs created, countering the job losses in the manufacturing industry.
In economics, we learnt that new industries would end up creating more jobs than they destroy, either directly or indirectly through higher economic growth. However there is a substantial chance that 3D might be an exception to this rule, leading to permanent structural unemployment. It cannot be denied that 3D printing will create many jobs, be it in its own industry or in other industries. But it is hard to predict if there will be more jobs than all the manufacturing jobs that will be lost.
Copyrights
Instead of scanning an object and reproducing a replica of it, 3D printers will evolve to using online 3D design programs. For example, if someone wants to print an iPhone 5 casing, he will just need to go online, search for the design he wants, download the file and print it out. This will lead to a problem of copyright infringement. Why should consumers pay when they can just copy your design or download a pirated blueprint off the Internet? The challenge to 3D printing includes the bane to all disruptive digital technology – copyright.
A copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to the creator of an original work or their assignee for a limited period of time upon disclosure of work. This includes the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Usually after a specific period of time, the work is said to enter the public domain. However, the mere possession or downloading of a file is not enough to create an infringement liability. To establish an infringement, sufficient evidence must be in placed before any actions can be taken. Also, if people just download a 3D design, print and use it at home, it’ll be difficult to monitor. Hence, it can be seen that copyright issues will be problematic. Not unlike how pirated movies are being downloaded or streamed online, there is little that the government can do to prevent this problem of copyright infringement.
Limitations
Similar to any other demand of any product, the key factor affecting the demand for 3D printers is the price. Not only the price of the printers but also the price of the printing cartridges – the operating costs.
Over the years, the price of 3D printers has dropped, exponentially in the last five years. In the early 1990s, price of 3D printers were a hefty five to six figure sum. In the past few years, it has dropped more than tenfold to a much more affordable price ranging from $1000 to $3000. With the price of 3D printers falling and the expectation for it to continue to fall, the concern will be the operating cost, which is the printing cartridge. Compared to the price of 3D printers, the printing cartridge is still relatively high albeit prices have dropped since. There are many materials that can be used for 3D printing like plastic, glass, steel, ceramics, gold, silver and titanium. The price differs for each material where gold, silver and titanium belong to the upper tier. However, we’ll just look at the most basic form of 3D printing material, plastic. The form of plastic used for 3D printing exist in 2 forms – plaster or resins. The price for printing a product made of plastic has dropped to $10 per cubic centimeters in the past few years to about $2 to $3 per cubic centimeters currently. This is still relatively high and might not be suitable for household uses yet. There is an optimistic view of this as the price of printing cartridges are expected to fall to a level where it is reasonable for households to use them.
In the short run, due to the price of 3D printers and the operating cost, the advantage of it is the ability to design objects traditional methods or machines are unable to produce due to the complexity or require very high costs to produce. 3D printers also allow consumers to customize their products. For example, you can print your name or picture on a bowl you’re going to print from your 3D printer.
At the moment, the 3D printers are generally applicable to manufacturers only as the benefits outweigh the cost of producing their goods. This might not be the case for the general public, besides technophiles, where it is still cheaper to buy existing products. But it can be assured that as time goes on, the price of 3D printers and the cartridges will continue to fall to a point where there is no reason to not use a 3D printer to produce goods that we want ourselves. Producers of 3D printers will make it a point to bring down the price level to create a market in which consumers are willing and able to buy.
Although the price of 3D printer may be a limitation in terms of monetary values, there are other intangible benefits as well. As mentioned earlier, 3D printers are widely used including the healthcare sectors where it is potentially able to save many lives. Hence, limitations of 3D printers applicable in one area might not be so in other areas and one must consider all aspects to weigh before undermining the significance of 3D printers.
Future Prospects
There is unlimited potential and possibilities when 3D printing continues to expand out to other industries. For example, 3D printing has already expanded into the food industry. The “ink” used are the food in fluid form like molten chocolate or cheese. More solid food such as meat or vegetables is grounded and mixed with other liquids to create a whole new genre of food. The use of 3D printing here can generate many interesting ideas such as printing cookies with hidden message or a hamburger patty containing liquid layer within of ketchup and mustard. Other areas are like healthcare, education or architecture. The printing of organs in healthcare sector, usage of 3D printing in education where students or engineers can expand their creativity or in the world of architecture where architects can build small scale models to see if the design of their building is feasible or not. Truly, 3D printers can find its way into almost any industry.
Reverse 3D printing uses the concept of reverse engineering where dismantling unwanted objects back into powder or liquid form to be used again as materials for printing. While this may sound impossible, it is already possible to use recycled materials such as recycled plastic to 3D print an object. The question is whether the 3D printers can incorporate this recycling ability and allow people to recycle their unwanted products at home. However, the real challenge actually lies in removing the impurities in the objects used for recycling. If this is possible, then it will really be a revolutionary change. First, it would be a green revolution. Second, it will drastically slow down the depletion of precious materials in the world. These will effectively lead to a sustainable growth for our human population.
The future of manufacturing is often closely associated with Asian countries, particularly in China and India. The cheaper labor cost inevitably led to many companies offshoring their production, like how many companies in the U.S. shift manufacturing jobs to Asian countries. However, the introduction of low cost 3D printers might reverse this process as the cost of local production decreases significantly and the wage gap between U.S. and China shrinks as wages in China rises at about 17% per year and the value of Yuan continue to increase. Analyst firms are predicting that during the next five years, there could be a “manufacturing renaissance” where jobs that have been outsourced for decades being shift back to the U.S. while the net manufacturing labor costs of producing in China and U.S. converges by 2015. Therefore, as 3D printers emerge in the world, we could start seeing a gradual movement in the manufacturing sectors moving back to the U.S. and with more products labeled “Made in the USA” within the next few years.
There is no boundaries to the impact 3D printing technology can have on our world. It is an endless list to all the possibilities 3D printing is capable of. As what people say, we are only limited by our imaginations. I believe 3D printing eventually will have a place in every field in the future.
Conclusion
3D printing opens up a whole new phase in technology, disrupting every field that it touches. Although there are some negative impacts but overall it largely changes the world in a positive dimension.
The feasibility of 3D printers will depend on a few major factors.
Firstly is the reduction in the price of 3D printers and the printing material. The prices have a direct correlation to the intensity of impact it is going to have on our world, whether it’ll reach out to producers only or to consumers and households as well. Secondly, it’ll depend on whether 3D printers can continue to be improved so that it’ll be able to support more types of technology in different fields. Thirdly, it’ll rely on the business models of companies. There are different aspects that a business emphasizes on and different ways of calculating profitability or different business strategies. Ultimately, it depends on the individual companies to whether they find 3D printers a practical use. This is largely possible though; due to 3D printers being not only more cost-effective but also being a greener technology.
In conclusion, I believe 3D printing is highly feasible due to the evidences that clearly shows that 3D printing is on its way and is already starting to change how things are being done in our world, starting with the manufacturing industries, followed by the healthcare sector, the food industry and so on. With all the benefits 3D printing is going to bring us, tangible and intangible, it clearly outweighs the disadvantages.
According to Clarke’s law, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” True to that, 3D printing follows that law where it’ll produce almost anything we want. As 3D printers continue to improve, we’ll be able to print more things and in a shorter amount of time. This is pretty much like a utopian world when every household has their own 3D printer. Eventually, it’ll be similar to Star Trek where replicators can make anything with a mere voice command. Even if this ideal situation doesn’t work out, believe it or not, 3D printing is still going to have a huge impact on our world.
References
Introduction
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Traditional Manufacturing
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Consumer
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Environment
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Healthcare
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Unemployment
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Copyright
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Limitations
R. Karlgaard. (2011, Jun 23). 3D Printing Will Revive American Manufacturing. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2011/06/23/3d-printing-will-revive-american-manufacturing/
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Future Prospects
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