Editorial

Citation

Campbell, I. (2009), "Editorial", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 15 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/rpj.2009.15615caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Rapid Prototyping Journal, Volume 15, Issue 3

The current “economic downturn” seems to be taking up much of the news time around the world. It may have started within the banking industry but it now appears to have affected almost every sector of industry in almost every industrialised nation. The automotive industry has been particularly hard hit with large reductions in output, factory closures and requests for government intervention being the order of the day. With the car, industry historically being a key user of rapid prototyping (RP) technologies, this has caused me to wonder what the effect of the downturn upon the RP industry will be and what role RP/rapid manufacturing (RM) might have in the road to recovery. Over the past two decades, the Wohlers Report has shown a sustained growth in the RP industry, although there were “blips” in the early and late nineties when machine sales growth faltered for a while. It will be interesting to see what the figures for 2008 will be. It would be surprising if the industry, as a whole, was able to buck the general economic trend. This may be a time for further “winnowing out” and rationalisation of the vendor base. Nevertheless, I would not be surprised if some of the system suppliers were able to keep their sales growing as they penetrate new markets and new application areas. As well as the system vendors, I expect the impact upon RP service suppliers to be just as significant, if not even more so. In particular, any bureaus who have been closely wedded to the automotive sector are surely going to suffer badly. It may well be a case of “diversify or die” but the speed of the downturn will have made this very difficult to achieve.

As for the role that RP/RM can play in assisting economic recovery, I can see at least one opportunity. In the UK, the government if very keen to see small and medium sized companies survive and grow. Also, now that the financial industry has shown itself to be a risky foundation on which to base the country’s economy, manufacturing is once again being seen as a worthwhile investment for the future. Therefore, if it can be made easier for small, start-up manufacturing companies to get their products to market then their ability to contribute towards economic growth will be strengthened. Surely, both RP and RM are key enablers in this scenario. RP has shown itself to be an invaluable means of demonstrating potential products to customers and stakeholders, much more understandable and tangible that drawings or even high-quality renderings. More needs to be done to promote this capability, even in countries where RP is no longer an emerging technology. As for RM, the fact that it is essentially tool-free manufacture could offer a quicker and less investment-intensive route to market place, even for products that will eventually be made in large numbers. However, for this to become common-place, the cost of production using RM must tumble as it is still prohibitively expensive in many cases. Perhaps, the shrinkage of many traditional RP bureau markets may pave the way for this to happen. Competition will increase and prices should fall. The service providers would have to re-structure their prices and practices to match the different needs of end-use products, rather than functional prototypes. I know of some who have already done this. It may be that expecting up-front payment is unrealistic and instead there will be need to be an element of risk-sharing and subsequent profit-sharing. This might actually prove to be part of the very “diversify or die” strategy that will be needed to survive the current situation.

Ian Campbell