HP Wants 3D Printing to Stop Being a “Novelty”

• At this point, most people in additive manufacturing (AM) agree on one thing: the industry has spent years talking about potential. After years of promises and future-looking concepts, companies are...

At this point, most people in additive manufacturing (AM) agree on one thing: the industry has spent years talking about potential. After years of promises and future-looking concepts, companies are now trying to prove that 3D printing can reliably manufacture real products at an industrial scale. That was a major focus of a recent 3DPrint.com interview with Arvind Rangarajan, Global Head of Product and Strategy for HP’s additive manufacturing business. Rangarajan repeatedly returned to the idea of moving AM beyond a novelty and making it a dependable production technology. “I think that’s basically the key theme inside HP now,” Rangarajan said. “We have been talking about additive as a novelty. But what we want now is to think about it as a real tool for production. So it sits on par wi