Commercial level Product Design

[Aleem 0]

Hi

The result of 3D printing for product design with required finishing is not looking promising after seeing the samples. 

How can we achieve designing and producing products on a commercial level that can be marketed and sale?

[Smithy 568]

Can you be more specific what you mean and what doesn't look promising?

[kmanstudios 1,046]

If you are looking for mass production, FDM, or really, any 3D printing will not compete with it.

 

One offs, prototypes, jigs and fixtures, specialty items that can command a higher than normal price, etc. But not mass production.

[Candman91 0]

Your question is rather vague and broad. Are you asking about the finishing processes, design for 3D printing, mass production runs, or something else along those lines.

 

Depending of the material and purpose of the part, there are finishing processes and tools out there should you require high detail with smooth surfaces. As for design, many industry designers are taking 3D printing into account when it comes to designing. Engineers are finding ways to design a complex system of parts that would take 10-15 parts to make the full assembly, and are now designing them into 1-2 parts alone, all thanks to 3D printing. There are plenty of 3D printers out there currently running mass production processes (less than 10k parts), and many more companies are looking into 3D printing for that reason as these parts aren't for large production runs, where injection molding would be better suited (1M parts or more). However, many of the parts that are being printed aren't in much of a visible location for the product, more as an internal component. 

 

So, unless you know what you intend to do with your product, and how you want to present it, is all up to you. Using 3D printing to manufacture the product is something that will have to be determined through the many factors that you deem suitable. Weigh your options to see if 3D printing is the route you want to take.

[sonali31 3]

Over the years, designers or companies have chosen to use the term ‘product design’ rather than industrial design as it’s slightly more specific than the vast field of industrial design.

As previously mentioned, product design is a specialized field within the broader spectrum of industrial design. product designers are often hired to design everything except for vehicles. Vehicle design (land, air and water) is a field that has its own traditions and practices and often prefers to hire designers who have specialized in automotive or transportation design. This leaves virtually everything else up to product designers. Today, software or digital products as well as services are often in the territory of product designers. In some cases, product design includes a sub-field of specialists called engineering designers. Given the common goals and roles played by the field of industrial design and product design, using one term instead of the other certainly leads to confusion for some. The field of product design and industrial design do overlap and sometimes the distinction between the two isn’t so clear.