Contract manufacturing
Rapid prototyping increasingly means creating physical product prototypes, often using 3D printing.
small details, such as materials stiffness and surface detail. “There you move into a professional service style of prototyping, using 3D printers that are producing devices to much higher standards, including finishing and polishing to make them more representative of the final product,” notes Bibb. “With consumer products, you could stop there and commit to manufacture, but with medical devices very small details start to matter, so you have to move to an ‘as-manufactured’ item.”
A typical approach to product development would be to get as much information as you can as quickly as possible, so that you stack up the effort in the early stages, says Gibson, who is also co-editor of the Rapid Prototyping Journal and is best known for his work in the area of additive manufacturing, having worked in this field for more than 25 years. “This lies behind the Japanese principle of kaizen – a lot of effort is put in at the start to minimise the expense of efforts later on,” he adds. “Digital models are becoming more effective and are good for minor changes and very quick iterations. Then additive manufacturing makes prototyping a more manageable process in terms of time management.” For example, he explains, if significant changes to a design were required, you would have to go back through multiple stages and make corrections. Yet if you used 3D printing, you could prevent that from happening by unearthing flaws early on.
The democratisation of 3D printing Back in the early 1990s, a decent 3D printer would set you back around £250,000. Anyone working in the field knew where most of the machines were, as there were only a few thousand worldwide. But so much has changed in the past 30 years.
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“I paid that much for one of the first machines I bought for my research lab in 1997, and I can now achieve the same things with a machine that costs £2,000,” says Gibson. “There are now millions of machines. This has put innovation in the hands of many more people. Around 50% of my students now have their own 3D printers. One benefit is personalisation. In the medical sector, you are not constrained by volume, so you can design personalised or highly customised products.” “3D printing gets you to the final stage with more confidence – you can’t feel a CAD model,” says Bibb. “Virtual reality can do some great things, but it has its limitations and the same is true with 3D printing.” This technology can only take you so far, he explains. You can identify design issues early with 3D printing, but you still have to prove to regulators that it works. “When you put the logo on the packaging, you make the promise that the product will do what you say it does.”
The mass availability of inexpensive 3D printing has revolutionised rapid prototyping. Designers and manufacturers can iterate using cheap and fast 3D-printed devices from an early stage to get the fundamentals right. That model can go into CAD to refine functionality, then high-quality 3D printing using specialist service providers can prepare the devices for the validation stages before a commitment is made to pre-production. “It is partly about speed to market, but it is more about increasing flexibility in the prototyping process,” says Bibb. “Make more mistakes early, rather than making them just before you are getting the tools ready for injection-moulding.” “Improvement in 3D printing certainly has an upper limit, as there are limits to what materials can go through a polyjet process,” he continues. “That is simply physics and it won’t change. The cost has come down, and you can use cheap machines in-house early on and knock out a few versions to your heart’s content. The tech is so accessible.” But while the tools and processes for rapid prototyping are easy to access, the key factor is knowing how to use them and what they can deliver. “There is still a need to understand what you are trying to achieve,” says Gibson. “The technology is plug-and-play, but there is still a learning curve. You still need the artisans, the creativity and the innovative understanding.” “Know what you are looking for from additive manufacturing, which offers the ‘fail fast’ mechanism,” he adds. “You can quickly turn ideas into physical products, but you have to ask why you are doing it, what you are seeking to learn, and why you are building each specific model.” ●
Medical Device Developments /
www.medicaldevice-developments.com
Connect Images - Curated/
Shutterstock.com
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