Technology assessment and technology transfer of 3D printing technology in Bangladesh

Abstract

The additive manufacturing process or 3D printing technology has the potential to speed up the innovation and product creation processes to step towards digital fabrication. The 3D printing process is helping the consumers to free themselves from traditional suppliers and acquire & design their own products according to their own design and requirements. The Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is the most matured and cost efficient technology worldwide which patent already expired for the open source community. In this research work, the 3D printing technology are assessed for Bangladesh. Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis has been deployed to evaluate different criteria and reach the most appropriate decision. Organizing the complex problems efficiently and taking into account multiple criteria leads to more informed and better judgments and choices. AHP is one of the most accurate technique for computing the relative weights of multiple criteria. The experiences from individual experts are utilized to approximate the relative magnitude of different factors using pair-wise comparisons. Each of the expert has to compare the relative importance of the two different items using a questionnaire specially designed for this purpose. A questionnaire was built specifically for this purpose and handed over to 10 3D printing technology experts. They evaluated the technologies and weighted them according to best of their expertise and experienced knowledge. Many criteria like cost, raw material availability, maintenance and production rate etc. Final weights were calculated and final results were designed using the weighted moving average giving priority to the more relevant data. It was concluded that the FDM technology was most appropriate for deployment in current manufacturing status of Bangladesh. From this thesis the financial feasibility study identified the most appropriate technology industrial sector to deploy the different types of polymer based 3DP technology. Also, through triple helix method mentioned specific area of contribution and responsibility of Academia, Government & Industry to implement this new technology to upgrade the traditional manufacturing sector into Digital Manufacturing system for Bangladesh.