I am working in the IT department of a Manufacturing company for the last 24 years. Having signed up for various Newsletters on latest developments in Information Technology , I had been coming across articles on 3D printing in the newsletters that I receive via mail.
I had come across 3D printing for the first time almost 2 years ago but in the last few months I got more and more interested in a 3D printer. All the while I assumed that these are available only in the developed countries.

But recently when I searched online for Vendors/resellers in India dealing with 3D printers I was surprised to see a couple of vendors in Hyderabad too. I was thrilled.

I wanted to share the information with my colleagues. The opportunity came in the form of a meeting conducted by the Head of our Department wherein we were all encouraged to express our ideas/queries/apprehensions etc.

I immediately put forth the idea as to whether a 3D Printer can help us in manufacturing some parts of our products. Currently all the products in our company are manufactured by machining.

None in the room were aware of a 3D printer and I was told to explore and come up with further details.

I was very excited and called up a vendor in Hyderabad and asked if they can do a Demo for us. They readily accepted and we arranged the Demo. The Vendor had brought a few small objects for the Demo and we were examined them like little kids 🙂

All the participants enjoyed watching the live Demo of a Desktop 3D Printer while it ‘printed’ a comb.

It is a beautiful technology were a 3D object is printed layer by layer using materials such as plastic, metal , ceramic etc. 3D drawings created using various 3D softwares can be converted to .stl files and given as input to the 3D printer software which is used for the final

The applications of 3D printing are numerous as complex parts can be very easily printed compared to the traditional methods.

Several parts of a BOEING aeroplane are being manufactured using 3D printers by GE.

The printers are being used in the medical field too. A lot of research is being carried out to print organs.

Houses are being built using 3D printing technology within hours.

A simple wrench was printed on the International space station (ISS) .

Simplifies store keeping and enables remote printing as and when required.

The advantage of the technology is obvious.

My boss has been encouraging me to go ahead and do a project and i am currently on the job 🙂 .