The Industrial Revolution, 2.0: Additive Manufacturing

My fascination with manufacturing as a staple of modern society goes back to my childhood, when I secretly pledged to work in a hanger factory, fearing that as hanger plant jobs became less and less sexy, there would be no one to make hangers.

But there's a new game in town, which I heard about recently at the Rapid-Tech Conference put on by the Regional Manufacturing Institute of Maryland.

Imagine this: on an oil refinery in a remote offshore area outside Texas, a 25+-year-old, creaky, rusty part --- whose original design doesn't even have a remote chance of being recorded in drawings, manuals or an -- fails, shutting down this multi-million dollar rig, possibly for weeks while the part is re-engineered and re-manufactured on shore.

But then, Version 2.0, imagine this: in a process called additive manufacturing, (in a weird sort of way, its kind of like printing out a digital version of a manufactured part or item), the same part is photographed offshore, scanned, digitally reverse-engineered, sand-molded, "printed" and recreated in a plant in Pennsylvania, and returned, polished and complete, to the oil rig in a matter of days?

According to one of the evangelists of additive manufacturing, Dave Burns of Ex One, it's actually happened. And the potential for a new generation of manufacturing that could make America competitive again is what it represents.

The steps, Burns says, boil down to this:
1) Scan or create CADD file of object to be manufactured.
2. Manipulate by taking said object and "slicing" it digitally, allowing it to be manipulated in layers.
3) Download the layers and recreate the physical object layer by layer. Either through liquid for viscuous material (like cake and the different layers of frosting); powder (layers can join through chemically selected particles) or chemistry (binding of particles), the object is rebuilt.

This contrasts with centuries of our current technology, subtractive manufacturing, in which blocks of material are whittled down to size to put back together.

At the conference, speakers talked about its potential across industries for better everything.

An orthopaedic surgeon said it will allow him to build a custom joint replacement for patients, allowing flexible geometry, quicker, more precise surgery (taking a six-hour surgery to a 90-minute operation) and lowering costs int he prodess. "It's much better to build a custom product for the patient than having to "modify" the patient to fit the off-the-shelf manufactured ,piece," he said.

• At Mercy Medical Center, Whiting Turner design engineers modelled patient-room headwalls in such detail using this process, they refabricated 190 identical rooms using the process off site, saving $4.5 million to the project.

It's a paradigm buster, Burns says, because "you can make anything you can design"....regardless of the complexity of the object, the design and manufacturing costs become equal.  He predicts a shift in the availability of manufacturing jobs: not less jobs, but more for CADD designers and designers who understand digitally based products. Students and professors from CCBC Catonsville are staking their futures on this, with a huge focus on additive manufacturing at the Fab Lab within their Enterprise Institute.

Artist Jan Kirsh works with additive manufacturers in the area to use a version of their technology for a new type of artwork. "Some artists are afraid to try this and try to say its not art, but I disagree," she says."I can be starting with a material manufactured in Italy in the 1600s and can now create it with a new application."

Keep an eye on this new Industrial Revolution. It could be the future of American manufacturing.

The Relevant Volunteer Fire Company


Six days ago, I was host to dozens of wholesome teens and their families who used me as a home for a big event to give out high school student band  awards.


Next week, I'll probably be home to a wedding reception filled with pink balloons, a perspiring bride and loaded plates of banquet food.


On a Saturday last month, more than 100 folks traipsed through my foyer on foot, in wheelchairs and walkers for their oyster and turkey supper.


And today, I'm the place that more than 500 law enforcement officers of various stripes have called home during the G-8 summit. I've been the source of breakfast lunch and dinner, the storage place for riot gear and the parking place for hum-vees, de-contamination tents and the grounds for training exercises for riot response.


I'm a fire hall, specifically the Lewistown Volunteer Fire Department's headquarters, and I serve many purposes for my community.


I'm an American institution, that combination of public need and private response; a kind of throwback to the days of Paul Revere and the riders who responded the call to the citizens to "come to arms" for the betterment of the community.


Am I a dying institution? Probably not. My very versatility, and the fact that I can respond to the needs of both the public sector (G-8 summit) and private parties makes me more relevant than ever. I'm the kind of public "institution" that will weather the cyclical debate about the role of government.

A wedding at the Lewistown Volunteer Fire Company's social hall provides such a contrast to..... 

          Assembly of personnel and supplies for possible mayhem!