Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping serves a fantastic role in the product or service design stage within operations.  Historically a designer would do the best job possible in identifying areas of concern prior to releasing a design to be fabricated.  Once the design was released it usually went into fabrication and (with fingers crossed) everything went well.  If not there would be a revision to the design and the process started over and more finger crossing.

With the advent of rapid prototyping, it was easy and fast to create a first look at a design before it went into production.  All the designer has to to is send a 3D CAD model to the prototyping shop.  Then the programmers would write the program and have the part "built", often using stereolithography to produce it.  Then the part can be inspected by all concerned parties and any modifications can be done quickly.  This means it can then be implemented quickly in time to support a tight production schedule.

During my time at Boeing, I was fortunate to have visited the rapid prototyping shop in South Seattle.  They could take any complex design and fabricate it to reveal what the part would look like.  It was fast and the results were amazing.

These two chess pieces were made at a rapid prototyping shop.  The grey piece made from a steel alloy and the red piece is made from a plastic.  Notice the detail on the close up of the red piece below.

The popularity of 3D printing may eventually take the place of a prototype shop.  But until everone has a 3D printer, it is worth the time to use a rapid prototype shop to prevent design delays during a critical part of the operations flow.