Stratasys says that direct digital manufacturing is being used to manufacture 32 components for its new production machine – the FDM 900mc. The machine was previewed at the EuroMold show in Frankfurt today. Direct digital manufacturing (DDM) is also known as rapid manufacturing. DDM can result in dramatic savings over traditional manufacturing.
The FDM 900mc machine's touch-screen bezel – one of the 32 parts –would have cost an estimated $100,000 for traditional tooling and required a probable 6-week wait. Traditional tooling is often not cost effective when a company sells a limited number of products per year. With DDM, production parts can be created on demand directly from CAD data, so no tooling is necessary.
"Direct digital manufacturing is not for mass production," says Stratasys FDM Product Manager Patrick Robb. "But if your operations call for limited-run production of certain parts, DDM is much more economical than machining or injection molding. Manufacturing engineers can't afford to ignore the savings."