Saving a project through rapid manufacture in south Africa

Product development is a very expensive issue. In a number of cases in South Africa, due to the cost of tooling, a product never enters the market. Sometimes it does enter the market, but very late, which can be detrimental for any new product. In most cases the product or project does not survive a late market entry. Rapid Manufacture (RM) by means of additive layered manufacture is a way to solve this problem and assist some of these projects that have an uncertain outcome. In this paper two case studies will be discussed where if RM was not applied, the projects would never have entered the market. The advantages of the process as well as unique ways in which cost was kept as low as possible is discussed. This can be a great advantage in specific cases where RM can be used as a process for manufacture.