Re: [rp-ml] International Terminology Standards

Until a company comes up with a machine that is so compelling that the
generic term is named after the company, I doubt that this exercise will
have much significance. Also until that happens, perhaps you shouldn't
be so quick to settle on a specific term.

Brock

G. Sachs wrote:
> Yes, Michael, remember BPM (Ballistic Particle Manufacturing)? This
> was one of the first commercial RP systems but, unfortunately, didn't
> last very long. To this growing list of past contenders we can add
> Helysis' LOM fabricator and Cubital's "Solider" machine.
>
> I, for one, do not believe in spending a lot of time coming up with
> new naming conventions or placing too much emphasis on the importance
> of such things (VHS, Beta, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.). Anything that is
> too specific is - just that - and anything that is too general just
> leads to misunderstandings (particularly by the media which already
> has a problem describing technology). A while back there was a push
> being made to use the term 'Fabbing' or 'Fabber' instead of RP. I had
> lots of problems with this term, but mostly, having to do with it
> sounding a little to artificially 'trendy' and hip (in a forced way)
> and because it also sounded like it might have been derived from
> "fabulous" rather than fabricating. So, I am happy just sticking with
> phrases such as "This was RP'd (or fabricated) using...". As far as
> printers go, it will sometimes be important to distinguish between
> different kinds of printers and/or processes (even in the media), so
> you might say "The tissue was engineered and RP'd (or fabricated)
> using a new bio-printer (rather than 3D-printer)". A 'bio-printer' is
> going to be a lot more complicated than a typical Z-Corp printer. I
> think '3D-fabricator', '3D-prototyper' or 'rapid model-creator/maker',
> etc. would be a bit better than just 3D-printer - if it's really THAT
> important for the media to have some other way to refer to
> rapid-prototyping, other than RP (which is still nice and short). Even
> '3D-replicator' might be a more modern-sounding, general, and familiar
> term for anyone that has ever seen a Sci-Fi movie. But all this 'name
> coining' reminds me, a little too much, of my time working for one of
> the major automotive companies, where an entire team of people spent
> the better part of one week 'agonizing' over the name they would give
> to an internally developed application (that wasn't even around all
> that long). Even back then, I thought this was an enormous waste of
> time and resources but, not surprisingly, no one else agreed with me
> (hey, they were getting paid to come up with these clever names and
> they were being cheered on by the application's developer). But this
> did give me a small glimpse of where some companies end up misplacing
> their emphasis (i.e. marketing over engineering) and led me to predict
> that they would not fare well in the long term. Needless to say, the
> prediction did not go over well and I took a lot of ribbing for it.
>
> Over the years, I have learned that your actual product counts a lot
> more than what you choose to call it (at least in the long term). So,
> I guess I'll just stick to the term RP, for now. When people start
> getting too clever with naming products - like CDO's (collateralized
> debt obligations) - my radar goes up. Indeed, 'RP' has had a slow
> adoption curve because, in some cases, it still proves to be neither
> all THAT 'rapid', nor as inexpensive, as its name would imply and more
> traditional approaches can still, sometimes, be more cost effective or
> produce much better results. I still can't believe that consumables
> for some of the processes are more than $15 cu-in. Anybody out there
> want to buy my flame-shooting 'Hemi'?.
>
> G. Sachs
> Paradyme Systems
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* "Miller, Michael W" <michael.w.miller@boeing.com>
> *To:* Yasser Hosni <yhosni@mail.ucf.edu>; RP-ML <rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi>;
> Terry Wohlers <tw@wohlersassociates.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 8, 2009 11:12:07 AM
> *Subject:* RE: [rp-ml] International Terminology Standards
>
> "Layered" is probably to restrictive. You'd be precluding future
> additive technologies that are voxel or free form based.
>
>
> *Michael W Miller* (michael.w.miller@boeing.com)
> The Boeing Company M/C 4E- 92 66-ZB-XQ12
> Desk) 206-544-7714 Pgr) 416-0257 Fax) 544-4093
> Rapid Prototyping and Modeling 655-4366 or -2262
> http://dmp-rpm.web.boeing.com/index.cfm
> *Disclaimer: Engineer and out the other!*
>
>
>
Received on Fri Jan 09 08:01:23 2009