Future of RP Re:Further Comments

From: Hanna, Paul (phanna@cessna.textron.com)
Date: Tue Dec 15 1998 - 19:03:13 EET


There have been many interesting view points on the future of RP over the
past few days. To add to the list, here are my comments.

I believe RP&M is here to stay and will become more accepted by the industry
and general public as time passes. Like many new innovative concepts or
products, it takes one or more really good situations to make a global
impact and poof, there you are, accepted. Until then you have skepticism
and opposition. A few examples of this could be the microwave oven. When
people first heard of it they were afraid of it thinking it would cause
cancer or cause headaches if standing to close, also they were so expensive.
The computer was thought of as being to complicated, a play toy, not
practical, also to expensive. Look at all of the APT programmers of the
past who did not want to learn any graphics programming system, CATIA,
Unigraphics, Pro/E, etc. because perhaps they were reluctance to change, or
of trying something new, or they did not understand it, and so on.

My point is this, today we have many RP&M processes that aid in production,
engineering, tooling, fabrication, etc, and it can only get better.
Hopefully as these processes become the norm, cost will reflect competition
making it more affordable. Somebody will think of the one or two things
that will really set this industry on its heals and then hold on. Recently
we have had two movies that depict examples of Stereolithography, Face Off,
and Toy Soldiers. My son came to me after seeing Toy Soldiers and said '
dad that's what you do isn't it' the part where they create one of the
soldiers with a laser. After all of my explanations and examples he finally
grasped the concept due to a simple movie, Incredible. Kids today are
growing up with computers in their rooms. Young engineers, tool makers,
designers etc. except challenges of trying something new and different.
With experienced senior mentors to help they can bring RP&M technology and
process into the 21 century as an integrated part of the process.
  
Things like just in time manufacturing, product on demand, design on the
fly, integrated manufacturing and tooling, one of a kind or unique
development processes,( example being the greeting card you make your self
at the mall), are potential if not current processes that can or will be the
normal business day of the future. The potentials are there, it seems to be
a matter of cost and time and creativity.

Thanks for listening.
Paul Hanna
Tool Engineering
Cessna Aircraft Company.

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:47:40 EEST