The term digital manufacturing is starting to gain avid use in the industry; however, definitions vary. According to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers,

“Direct digital manufacturing is the process of going directly from an electronic digital representation of a part to the final product via additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing, then,is the process of creating a physical object through the selective fusion, sintering or polymerization of a material. Most industry references describe digital manufacturing as a part of product lifecycle management. We must, then, also discuss indirect digital manufacturing, which is a relatively new term used to identify the production of engineering aids, such as jigs and fixtures.

As previously mentioned, creating a mold is a labor-intensive project—constituting nearly 70 percent of the time it takes to produce the tool. Tool design, tool build, machining time, assembly and imminent scheduling conflicts make up the majority of the labor. The decision to use digital manufacturing is usually based on customer need.

Most engineers design a concept and send it to a molder/moldmaker while the design is still going through multiple iterations. With digital manufacturing, there are no cost penalties for changes throughout the design process. By using aluminum or steel tooling, the leadtime is two to 10 weeks just for design validation. In addition, there are added costs to using aluminum or nonferrous steel for pilot builds from wasted materials. With digital manufacturing processes, such as fused deposition modeling, only the materials needed for the build are used. There is no excess or waste, making it a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly process.

The availability of materials—similar to those required for end use—is a main concern for engineers during the testing and validation stage of design. Thermoplastic materials provide a range of testing criteria to suit some of the most rigorous testing methods. Due to its temperature resistance, range of components and flexibility, thermoplastics provide better usability at a lower cost, which allows molder/moldmakers, to offer a less expensive alternative to its customers over traditional tooling.