3D Printing Future Looks Promising

Shapeways is a company bringing 3D printing to the masses. I am curious as to how large an impact 3D printing will really have on manufacturing, and how soon. Recently, spending some time teaching strategic thinking to Saint Gobain, a couple of manufacturing researchers in the class confirmed for me that they are using 3D printing more and more and in fact expect it to become faster, and more widely used than I had suspected.

Imagine a world where many products are manufactured on demand, in the local equivalent of a Kinkos copy store. Imagine the ability to tweak the design yourself, if you want, before you hit the print button. This future may be coming sooner than we think.