Mass production 3D printing? It’s coming, and it’s a big deal

“Markforged, a company that makes industrial 3D printers, today announced that it has closed an $82 million Series D round,” Greg Nichols writes for ZDNet. “That’s a hefty raise for a 3D printer company, and it signifies an important shift in additive manufacturing, long the sphere of prototyping and short run production, toward higher output and mass production.”
Markforged set out to change the pace of human innovation by enabling engineers, inventors and manufacturers to print industrial-grade parts at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. We’re very excited to have Summit join us as we help accelerate the next industrial revolution with broadly accessible and reliable 3D printing. — Markforged CEO and co-founder Greg Mark
“That’s a lofty aspiration, but it might not be far off. The $12 trillion manufacturing sector is undergoing a transformation thanks to flexible automation technologies, including autonomous mobile robots and collaborative robotics,” Nichols writes. “Additive manufacturing, bolstered by cloud-based software, greater precision, new materials, and increasing outputs may be the missing ingredient to transform production for the 21st century.
“Imagine if large production runs of parts could be initiated with a CAD file and a laptop,” Nichols writes. “No tooling and no line setup required.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’ll be a revolution all right: Just imagine how it’ll affect