3D printing revolution

3D printing has been used in prototyping for over a decade. It has now moved not only to end product manufacture, but is moving towards the kitchen, the hospital and any design shop near you. A production revolution, and possibly a medical revolution too, is underway.

What's changing

3D printing creates objects line by line, layer by layer using a printer not totally dissimilar to the ones found in most offices and homes. They can use a growing range of materials including glass, plastics and metals, and soon also foodstuffs and cells. The accuracy with which they are able to transform a design into a final product is growing and the price of the equipment is falling, some now cost as little as £10,000, although the more sophisticated ones still cost £100s of thousands.

Click here to view the trend alert.

Contributed by Sheila Moorcroft, Research Director, Shaping Tomorrow

---

Latest Insights

---

Exciting improvement to the Shaping Tomorrow

UNLIMITED FREE ACCESS: You now have unlimited access to the site’s extensive futures content and tools indefinitely. For the first 30 days, you can also add material to the site in private mode.  After which you can continue to use the site and add material that will be visible to others. You will need to upgrade to continue using the site in private mode. Your private material will remain available to you indefinitely and will never be shared with others.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: Previously, only about 50% of the site could be used in free mode. Any organization of any size or an individual member can now create and maintain their complete strategy in private giving them significant advantage over lesser prepared rivals.

INVITE A FRIEND: If you like what you see here and want to help us grow our services and value to you, Then please recommend your friends, associates and colleagues. Click on the Network tab on the site or click here to send your invitations.

 

New representative office in China
By popular request of our clients we are pleased to announce the establishment of our first representative office in China in partnership with the Berkshire Publishing Group. Berkshire is an established US company that specializes in international relations, cross-cultural communication, business and economics, and environmental sustainability, and has for over five years worked with futurists and future studies organizations.

We have created a partner site with Berkshire named {Bao} China Futures aimed at helping non-Chinese organizations better understand the future of the country and to promote strategic foresight to Chinese companies. {Bao} China Futures will be recruiting up to 100 Chinese and foreign experts to create a one-stop shop for the analysis of political, economic, social and technological trends in the country. Watch this space for details of the call for fellows, to see who has already been recruited to this venture and to sign up for this new service.

And, if you would like to set up a country watch in partnership with us or want to pre-sign up for the China service now, just contact Kerry and we will get back to you with the details.

Happy futuring
The Shaping Tomorrow team