Greg Morris is a believer in manufacturing the unmanufacturable. His company, Morris Technologies, specializes in producing highly complex components for aerospace, medical and industrial applications. While his machine shop features an array of traditional high-end CNC machines, it has increasingly relied on an ever-expanding lineup of direct metal laser sintering systems to produce parts of unusual, intricate geometric designs.There are eight of these machines in Morris' shop, representing arguably the highest concentration of DMLS capacity in the world. These machines aren't spitting out prototypes. Rather, Morris Technologies is now churning out production parts in high-growth applications, which in many ways represents the realization of the technology's promise.Whether it's called rapid manufacturing, direct digital manufacturing, solid freeform fabrication or low-volume-layered manufacturing, the technology is still built on the same principle of creating an object by stacking one layer of material -- either plastic or metal -- on top of another."It's opening up new design paradigms," says Morris. "By virtue of how it builds in an additive nature, you can combine multiple components into one. You can reduce weight. You can get performance enhancement out of a part that you couldn't dream of before. Many of the constraints of traditional manufacturing are just gone." This has been enabled by two key trends. First, the technology has advanced from being a niche tool limited to designers and engineers, to one of wider acceptance across multiple industries, including among manufacturing engineers. Second, the price point has dropped dramatically, making the investment more palatable to a greater number of manufacturers.When Northrop Grumman's aerospace systems division began using rapid prototyping 15 years ago, it was mainly for use on disposable parts, such as fabricating tools and drill jigs. But because of innovations on the material front, where metals and plastics can now meet aerospace performance requirements, Northrop Grumman is using the technology for the production of ducts, clips and brackets. View article on one page
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