The future of manufacturing will be local—in a lab, in the middle of the ocean, or on a spaceship to Mars by way of 3D printing. Imagine needing to replace a broken part on a spaceship and being able to use its readily available design schematic to print the replacement part on the fly. Or, when a patient needs a new heart—a customized artificial heart could be built in a local lab with fast delivery to a surgeon located down the street.
Body parts and prosthetics aren’t the only advances that would benefit from 3D printing: Engineers are printing coral reefs to help save our oceans, and the idea of printing food is also being explored. The materials used in 3D printing will continue to evolve as innovative use cases are identified, turning today’s ideas for manufacturing goods and parts into a reality for the future.
Barthelemy is founder and CEO, GlobalMed, a manufacturer of telemedicine stations and designer of virtual health software.
Main photo: a prototype for 3D printing an artificial heart.
