So what makes Additive Manufacturing so special you may ask

One of the best advantages of additive manufacturing might be that you are able to produce just a once off single item, custom bracket or specialized tool.

With additive type of manufacturing there is no need to setup an entire workshop or create specialized molds, in traditional manufacturing it got very expensive and labour intensive to make just a once off item that included hours of manual labour that increase the cost rapidly.

Traditional manufacturing parts used to be only viable when one part or tool was made over and over again with no changes to the design, now you have the freedom to prototype to your hearts desire at a fraction of the cost.

3D printing parts are generally lighter in weight and can have much thinner walls, 3D Printers can produce a wall as thin as 0.2mm whereas injection molding on average needs a wall thickness of  2.0mm to 4.0mm.

Then now we get to the environmental impact of additive manufacturing, as the process is additive rather than the traditional subtractive, the amount of waist is significantly less due to near exact amounts of material is used to produce the item, the energy consumption of 3D printing is much more eco-friendly with approximately 70% drop in impact compared to traditional processes, reducing the factory or print farms carbon footprint.

furthermore, 3D print farms are able to use recycled materials, reducing the need for virgin resources and reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills.

In short – 3D printing is helping to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing.