18. Direct Digital Manufacturing

From the mid-1980s to the present, the percentage of parts made from Additive Manufacturing that are used as final, production parts has consistently increased. For the first decade of AM, commercial focus was on prototyping. During the second decade of AM, a significant amount of work went into illustrating the benefits of AM for producing tooling (the subject of a subsequent chapter). Starting in the mid-2000s and continuing to the present, the focus has shifted to utilizing AM for production of end-use components, which we call “Direct Digital Manufacturing” (DDM). DDM has continued to gain momentum, and today the majority of parts made using AM are for DDM and rapid tooling, rather than for use as prototypes. An overview of the types of applications that DDM is enabling as well as benefits and drawbacks of DDM compared to traditional part manufacturing operations is overviewed in this chapter.