Looking AheadThe Long Term Economic Impact of

3D Printing

Prof. Thierry RaynaProfessor of Economics

Department of Economics & Finance

Chair of Digital Business

ESG Management School, Paris

Email: trayna@esg.fr

Outline

Technological and adoption trends

Opportunities and challenges

Will 3D Printing change the economy?

Public policies

TECHNOLOGICAL & ADOPTION TRENDS

3D Sc

anne

r 3D Printer

Technology

Costs1980 … 2000 2010… …2020

$20K $1K $500

Polymers

$200K

Plastics Metal a!oys

Sugar

Chocolate

Ce!s

Ceramics

…

$100…

…

Many 3D Printing Technologies

Stereolithography (SLA)

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)

Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

Laser Deposition Technology (LDT)

Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3)

Tree vs. Forest

Technology

Tree vs. Forest

SLA FDM LOM SLS LDT EBF3

Many materialsPlastics

Metal alloys

Ceramics

Wood

Sugar

Chocolate

Salt

Cells

Molecules

…

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH 3D PRINTING?

ANYTHING!

ToysSimple ones…

ToysComplex ones

Smartphone casessimple ones

Smartphone casesVery advanced ones

Household itemsSimple ones

Household itemsMore complex ones

DishesCreative ones

Silverware

Food

Tools

Cisors

Shoes

Shoes+Smartphone case

Clothes

JewelleryWorks with gold too…

Cars

Car parts

Car keys

Body parts

Organs

Drugs

The question is not what can you print…

The question is what CAN’T you print…

FDM Printer8 materials (1 at a time)

$1,000

$20,000

Object500 Connex100 materials (14 at a time)

$250,000$1,000?

Usage and adoption trends

Very few consumers own 3D printers

But:

3D printers have already left the factories

They have already reached offices

They will reach the homes tomorrow

Many, many ‘big names’ supporting 3D printing

‘Additive’ adoption

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040

Adoption

2050

Rapid prototyping

Rapid Tooling

Digital manufacturing

Home fabrication

OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES

“3D Printing is the transformative technology of the 2015–2025 period”

Rich Karlgraad, 2011

“Desktop manufacturing revolution [. . . ] will change the world as much as the personal

computer did”

Chris Anderson, 2012

“3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost

everything.”

Barack Obama, 2013

OPPORTUNITIES

3D Printing – Opportunities

Creativity

Entrepreneurship

Innovation

Sustainability

Opportunity: Creativity

Costly to be creative

3D printing lowers costs

Rapid prototyping for everyone

‘Live objects’: incremental improvements

Meet the demand: know what customers want

Opportunity: Entrepreneurship

‘Kickstarter 2.0’

Anyone can be an entrepreneur

‘On-demand’ production

Virtually no pre-commitment on quantity

Venture capital obsolete?

Community-based entrepreneurship

Opportunity: Innovation

Creativity + Entrepreneurship = Innovation

Opportunity: Sustainability

Additive vs. subtractive

Actual demand vs. estimated demand

Local manufacturing vs remote manufacturing

Fewer resources needed

CHALLENGES

3D Printing – Challenges

Intellectual property rights

Prosumers

Incentives and rewards

Responsibilities and liability

Challenge: Intellectual Property Rights

Consumer piracy

Will happen

Will not be stopped by technology and law

Massive co-creation

What IPR for that?

$ 3,499

$ 3,500

Skills & knowledge embedded in:

the object

the builder

Challenge: Prosumers

Consumers producers = Prosumers

Consumers involved in

Design

Distribution

Manufacturing

Challenge: Incentives and Rewards

Standard contract: agreed output + deadline + predefined payment

Sign a contract with 1,000s of people?

How to define the output and its value?

What about rewards?

Money can be a disincentive

Consumers don’t do it for money, but what for then?

Challenge: Liability

Who is responsible when a 3D printed object does not meet expectations or fails?

Designer?

Hosting platform?

Printer manufacturer?

Consumables manufacturer?

Consumer?

LONG-TERM ECONOMIC IMPACT OF DIGITAL MANUFACTURING

Long-term economic effectsInnovation unleashed

Massive cost savings

Tooling

Transport

Storage

Waste

Return of manufacturing

Regional and global development

Competitiveness

Sustainable growth

Take risk in a risk-free environment

Growth requires to innovate

Innovating is risky and costly

Digital Manufacturing enables to take risks in an (almost) risk-free environment

Towards a third industrial revolution

Radical changes in the economy

Profound reorganisation of industrial sectors

Profound reorganisation of society?

Towards a 3rd Wave?

1st Wave 2nd Wave 3rd Wave

Type

Key resource

Key organisation

Family

Roles

Production

Economy

Agricultural Age Industrial Age Information Age

Land Non-renewable resources

Information*

Village Corporation Communities?

Extended Nuclear Diverse?

Integrated Consumer/producer split

Prosumers

Custom Mass Custom

Decentralised Concentrated ?

Will it be the end of mass production?

Probably not:

People may like the same things

Customisation is uneconomical for large quantities

But:

It might be the end of concentrated production

Will everyone have a 3D printer?

Probably not

after all some people still do not have TV!

probably uneconomical to have a multi-material printer in each home

WHAT ROLE FOR GOVERNMENTS?

The role of governments

Steer and grow the ecosystem

Trigger adoption

Help building a safe and trustworthy environment for digital manufacturing

Rethink IPRs and find new forms of incentives

Embrace 3D Printing

The cat is out of the bag:

3D Printing can’t be prevented, so embrace it!

Transformative effects as high as Personal Computing or even the Internet

Where would countries who had not embraced such technologies be now?

3D Printing

Big DataBiomimicry

Internet of Things

Building bridges...

Thank you