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[charlie T colton]

GE to give moms and pops...same chance to_innovate_metal_printing in their respective fields.

At industryweek.com - State of 3D Printing 2019: All Grown Up & Ready to Work - Feb 01, 2019

Aviation is as stringent, maybe more than medical, and GE has mastered how and where to use additive. Now it wants to give moms and pops, or small and medium enterprises, the same chance to innovate metal printing in their respective fields.

"I think many customers still view this as a research tool, or as a tool for R&D and universities—it's not," says Christine Furstoss, CTO of GE Additive.

Still, it has taken a high degree of skill and manufacturing prowess to get consistent, reliable parts, non-negotiable aspects of manufacturing.

"We're working with electron beams and lasers, these are high heat sources," explains Furstoss, a metallurgist by trade. "Things sometimes distort, they change, they move. Fine tuning that has become a very iterative process."

In May, the company is rolling out the preparation workflow suite to make these metal 3D printing less esoteric and more approachable, and thus adoptable.

"Large understand how to slice up design [to get it ready to print]," Furstoss explains. "Small and medium, might run with a staff of ten engineers and we want to make it easier for them."

Furstoss distills it even further.

"It's all about productivity," she says. "The whole industry evolved. Additive has not traditionally been a fast process, but now with these new advances, productivity increases are one and half to two times what they were before."

And in the end, this isn’t about one technology maturing and growing up. It's just another example of continuous improvement methods that some companies have recognized to reap great success and higher productivity. It's not the only answer, but it's time to have adult conversations about it, and not get wrapped in the silly novelties and one-offs.