March 20208 MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSMaking the Switch from Prototyping to ProductionBy Robert Yancey, Business Development Director, Hexcel Corporation [NYSE:HXL]When Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing was introduced to the market, it was called rapid prototyping, which was an accurate description of the process ­ a method to quickly create physical prototypes from virtual representations of a product. The name has evolved over the years to additive manufacturing (AM) to capture the goal of the industry to create functional components in a more agile manner rapidly. This is the stated goal of the AM industry, but few have developed robust additive manufacturing production systems.
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