'3D printing' poses big threat to transport, labour intensive industry

A NEW technology called 3D Printing, or "additive manufacturing", has the potential to be as disruptive to industry as the assembly line once was, says a report from the UK's Transport Intelligence.

The new technology, which "prints products" in an automated process, no longer needs large work forces, thus eliminating the demand for large low-cost offshore labour and transport to bring products to market, says the report.

"Globalisation has brought enormous benefits for shipping lines, airlines and freight forwarders as vast quantities of consumer goods are moved internationally to western markets from the Far East," said the report.

"Consequently any challenge to globalisation must be viewed as a threat to global transport. However, as with all disruptive technologies, it also offers opportunities for those companies agile enough to respond." said the Ti statement announcing the report.

Wikipedia says "additive manufacturing" or "3D printing" is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital model. 3D printing is achieved using additive processes, where an object is created by laying down successive layers of material".

Wikipedia also says "it is distinct from traditional machining techniques, which is a subtractive process, and mostly relies on the removal of material by drilling, cutting, etc".