On this episode of Cyber Security Inside, Tom and Camille have a fascinating chat with Paul Morrow Professor of Engineering Design and Manufacturing at the Pennsylvania State University, Tim Simpson. Their conversation may seem to border on science fiction, but they’re talking about the existing and soon-to-be realities of 3D Manufacturing. It just might blow your mind.
This is one you absolutely can’t miss. Listen now.
Here are some key take-aways:
• Additive manufacturing is the layer by layer creation of real components. These components can be made of a variety of materials and can serve many purposes.
• Additive manufacturing is being used in the medical and dental fields to make things like knee implants, hip implants, Invisalign braces, and more.
• Additive manufacturing can produce components that are as strong and durable as those made by traditional manufacturing.
• The Navy has even used additive manufactured components made of titanium on their choppers.
• A benefit of additive manufacturing is that it allows you to repair parts and print parts as you need them.
• Additive manufacturing allows companies to more quickly iterate on designs, turning out product in days rather than months, or months rather than years.
• Additive presents new security challenges we’re not used to dealing with in manufacturing. It’s not just about ensuring data security — it’s about ensuring quality.
• Blockchain is being explored as a way of ensuring the security of files and the legitimacy of additive manufactured parts.
Some interesting quotes from today’s episode:
• “The shift from what has historically been 3D printing to this notion of additive manufacturing is you are using an additive process to make a real part.”
• “Think about Jay Leno when he's repairing the old cars, the old legacy cars, or even some of the airplanes and military equipment that was designed 30, 40, 50 years ago. The company that made that bolt widget may not exist anymore. And so you could take that part and scan it or recreate it, and then manufacture with additives.”
• “I don't have to ship my tooling or my mold around the world. And all I need to do is ship a file.”
• “I think the real killer app for additive is just being able to print exactly what we need, when and where we need it.”
• “You could take a cell phone and just record the motors whirring and whizzing around. And from that, recreate what it printed with about 80 to 90% accuracy. So now, talk about espionage and counterfeiting of a part. I could just be sitting there holding my phone next to a printer, getting the beeps and boops and whirs, and turn around and do that."
• “But take a machine shop or a job shop. If they're plugging in a 3D printer to connect to the Internet, now you've got a new entry point for cyber attacks and hackers.”
• “From a design perspective, I can change the composition, I can change the material properties, all within a single part or component that previously I couldn't do, or it was too expensive, or I had to assemble a bunch of different parts together. Additive sort of expands your design space.”
• “I think it's going to allow you to go after smaller markets, after more customization, after niches that you have, by the economics of it, been forced to ignore or not pursue. That's where I think additive is going to have the biggest change here in the near future.
• “As you scale down production quantities, the data security needs are not going to change.”
• “It’s not an ‘if,’ it's a ‘when,’ in terms of when will we just take a blood sample or a skin graph from a patient and then turn around and print his or her new kidney or gallbladder, or whatever, and install that the next time we have surgery. It’s coming.”