Personal 3D-Printing: A Remapping of the Relationship between Product Designers, Products and Users

DS 85-2: Proceedings of NordDesign 2016, Volume 2, Trondheim, Norway, 10th - 12th August 2016

Year: 2016
Editor: Boks, Casper; Sigurjonsson, Johannes; Steinert, Martin; Vis, Carlijn; Wulvik, Andreas
Author: Turbovich, Zuk; Das, Amarendra K.; Avital, Iko; Mazor, Gedalya
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: 1: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India; 2: Shamoon College of Engineering
Section: Additive Manufacturing
Page(s): 012-021
ISBN: 978-1-904670-80-3

Abstract

The rapid advancement of 3D printing technologies and recent developments creates new opportunity and challenges. The prime motivation of this research was driven from the possibility to integrate 3D printers in home environment. 'Like the swallow heralds the spring', the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers, which recently started to be marketed for home use, herald new times, when users will be able to manufacture their products in their homes. The article will refer to a context of reality in which, multi-materials 3D printers will be integrated in home environment, and will be affordable enough so many users will have one, or will have an access to a shop that provides 3D printing services. In such a reality, new design values will arise and the interaction with the user will be more direct and flexible. An analysis of paradigms and methodologies from the fields of mass-customization, user involvement and 3D-printing, discovered that there is lack of information, regarding to a reality in which 3D printers will be integrated in home environment, and how the familiar and new design values will look like in this case. By analyzing the abilities of the 3D printing technologies and by adding the factor of the presence of such a technology in home environment, products might be defined by 3 categories: Fully Democratic Product (FDP) - a product that can be fully printed by a personal 3D printer, Semi-Democratic Product (SDP) – a product that only certain parts of it can be printed by a personal 3D printer, and Standard Product (SP).
The article will discuss and present a new mapping that includes the product design process and its values, the final product and the user involvement. The new mapping will be according to the 3 categories of FDP, SDP and SP.

Keywords: Mass Customization User Involvement, 3D-Printing

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