In the last decade, a large number of new manufacturing technologies have been developed. These methodologies permit the rapid translation of a concept into a solid replica within a matter of days. Heretofore, conventional methods of prototyping systems may have involved weeks, months or even years to bring the product from concept to hard physical form. These newer approaches fall into the general category of Rapid Prototyping (RP). They allow "art to part" in a very short period of time; usually it is a matter of only several days. This approach has been developed principally in the United States and is used throughout the United Kingdom. Other names for this technology include desktop manufacturing, solid free form fabrication, and layered manufacturing.
Profits accrue when the income from sales exceeds the total cost of manufacture, and profits can thus be increased by either leveraging (increasing) sales or by reducing costs—preferably both. In conventional manufacturing, there is a focus on reducing labor content associated with the manufacturing process. Usual choices have been automation and other speed reduction methodologies which attack the problem strictly from the standpoint of how it is manufactured. Conventional wisdom, however, has not, until very recently, been applied to the way in which the product is first conceived, designed, and then transformed into "hard" physical units. The challenge in business today, as it has been since nearly the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, is coming to market quickly with an appropriately priced product and/or service. Rapid manufacturing technology can significantly reduce the time-to-market factor for new products by as much as 90 percent and the cost-to-market factor by as much as 70 percent (Kelly, 1999).
RP is a new expression for the generation of three-dimensional models manufactured without the need for conventional machining or tooling. Conventi...