| | JULY 20188CIOReviewIN MY OPINION3D PRINTING REQUIRES WILDLY DIFFERENT THINKINGBy James MacLennan, SVP & CIO, IDEX CorporationI've been writing a lot about smart, connected products--a.k.a. the Internet of Things (IoT)--but there is another transformative technology change that has my attention. Additive Manufacturing --a.k.a. 3D Printing (3DP)--promises to be almost as disruptive as IoT, but in different ways. More to come in the weeks ahead--but I wanted to get this story out.I was recently at a 3DP tech event and got into a fascinating conversation with someone about the state-of-the-art in Additive Manufacturing. This person (we'll call them Pat) has been in industry and academia for many years, and is exposed to a lot of cutting edge stuff--we'll leave them anonymous for now. One of the first things I got from the conversation was an understanding of the term "additive manufacturing"--because Pat used the term "subtractive manufacturing" to refer to well-established methods where a chunk of raw material is routed and shaped, removing material until you get to the final shape. Ah, now I understand!Pat felt that most of the 3D printing hype out in the market right now is just that hype. To really have an impact, you need a confluence of factors:· Complex shapes--very expensive and difficult to do with traditional manufacturing methodsUntil manufacturers can 3D print parts and assemblies with the many specialty materials in use, most applications for the technology are going to be in prototyping and simple replacement parts
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