5.1 Custom parts
One of the most exciting opportunities AM offers is for the production of custom components, specifically for medical applications. Figure 4 in Section 2.3 is a picture of a jawbone reconstruction specifically made for the patient in question. But other applications exist – see the examples in Figure 22.
Figure 22 Additive manufacturing used for making or repairing human tissue and organs. (a) Skull repair. (b) Jawbone reconstruction. (c) Broken bone support cast. (d) Custom dental work.
The key point is that once the design is finalised, the cost and effort required to make a single instance of that design versus a large batch are similar. This is almost unheard of in manufacturing and could be called a paradigm shift.