Agility through rapid prototyping technology in a manufacturing environment using a 3D printer

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the adoption of rapid prototyping (RP) technology using three dimensional (3D) printer for infusing agility in traditional manufacturing environment.Design/methodology/approach – The computer aided design (CAD) model of a knob of an electronics switch is developed using Pro/E software. Keeping this model as a reference, CAD models of new six knobs are developed. A 3D printer is used to build the prototypes of five of those CAD models. The receptivity of the practitioners over adopting CAD models and 3D printer for achieving agility is investigated.Findings – The sensitisation of the industry captains and employees of traditional manufacturing sector is the imperative for exploiting the power of 3D printer and achieving mass customisation.Originality/value – The paper reports an original research in which the practicality of using 3D printer is investigated with the objective of enabling the traditional manufacturing companies to imbibe agile characteri...

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