RAPID PROTOTYPING - APPLICATIONS IN ACADEMIC-INSTITUTIONS AND INDUSTRY

In today's competitive world, the manufacturers have to get a new and improved product to the market as fast as possible to be able to compete in the global market. The major obstacle for this task had been a long product development cycle, i.e., design, prototype manufacture and testing. The introduction of rapid prototyping (RP) in the early stages of product development has greatly reduced the development time frame and cost involved in prototype manufacturing. Furthermore; RP applications are growing very fast in such a way that it is now possible to produce parts not as prototypes, but as final parts to be used in several engineering applications. Thus, RP is now acting as a bridge to help designers, manufacturing engineers, marketing and sales personnel to provide goods timely to the customer. This paper discusses practices, current developments and future trends of RP. This paper also discusses the use and role of RP in academic institutions.