Today’s online economy has produced a need for the ability to produce quality products from an array of creative digital tools in short time frames. Commerce, in general, is adjusting to faster order-to-fulfillment cycle expectations. Additionally, just in time supply chain philosophies have risen in popularity and the flexibility of small-batch manufacturing is becoming more common and in-demand.
One core element of this e-commerce machinery is the technology that enables transformations from creative content in digital form to physical products that can be sold and used by consumers. Some of the tools in that process include things like web to print software tools, cloud-based customer relationship management and additive manufacturing.
Customer Driven Manufacturing
The promotional item industry is a good example of this kind of functionality. Companies ranging from large corporations to small mom and pop cottage industry businesses know that branding and marketing are important parts of their business plan. The ability to hand out promotional items to customers and prospects is a popular method of executing that portion of their operation.
Many promotional item suppliers make use of processes that reside almost entirely online in the cloud. Large server farms and sophisticated creativity tools that are easily accessed and used by consumers are becoming commonplace. Customers have grown to expect the convenience and fast turnaround times that these technologies make possible.
A small company with limited marketing resources can enlist the immense computing power of the cloud right from their office. The internet enables them to plug into a suite of creative tools that are, in turn, connected to automated manufacturing processes. They can have tee-shirts with their logo imprinted on them made or drinking cups or pens and pencils literally at the touch of a button.
Additive Manufacturing
Another trend in this space that will likely continue to grow and flourish as the future unfolds is 3D printing. Product creation has historically been a painfully slow process. The time required to produce a prototype item, depending upon the level of complexity, might have been measured in years. Even then, manufacturing companies were shackled by prohibitively expensive requirements to tool up for mass production.
Producing unique, physically useful items used to involve long-lead-time processes at every step along the way. The manufacturing process of today is becoming a streamlined computer-enabled marvel. In the past, when an engineer or inventor conceived of a product, the process of developing the product required manual iterative coordination among participants in the product’s development. Now, cloud-based tools allow for all individuals involved to view the product design process and make contributions concurrently.
Once a design is completed the software tools generate a three-dimensional model of the product to be made in virtual space. This functionality avoids the extremely slow and costly steps of having craftsmen, artisans and sculptors make a physical prototype of the item. In the modern version of manufacturing, the virtual 3D model is translated into a series of step by step additive manufacturing actions carried out by the 3D printer.
The result of this process is a physical prototype of the product that can then be carefully examined, analyzed and tested to uncover possible flaws or opportunities for improvements. At this stage of the process, design modifications can be easily implemented by tweaks in the virtual model followed by printing the modified version for proof of concept and final approval.
Finally, with a workable prototype in hand, if necessary, the costlier steps of tooling up a manufacturing line can proceed with confidence that the product is ready for mass production. Today, this entire process can take place in a matter of weeks compared to sometimes years-long development in the past. Furthermore, this process equips designers and inventors with new degrees of freedom for risk-taking in product development that would have been dismissed out of hand in the past.
The future of automated product design and manufacturing is an exciting landscape of new tools and digital techniques enabled by the cloud and improving computer hardware and software. It truly is an exciting time to watch as manufacturers explore these and other avenues to bring ever more creative and unique products to the market.