Maintaining inventories of spare parts has historically been a burden for suppliers and customers. Costly to store and rarely ordered, some suppliers are hesitant to even manufacture and offer spare parts to customers. In the midst of these difficulties arises the new manufacturing solution – digital inventories of designs printed on-demand with 3D printing. 3D printing, aka additive manufacturing (AM), offers fast production, unrestrained by the lead times associated with injection molding or other traditional manufacturing methods. A variety of technologies and materials serve many applications and are capable of handling complex geometries. Part suppliers can simply send digital files to an additive manufacturing service bureau like Objective3D Direct Manufacturing , and access large manufacturing capacities and a wide-range of post-processing offerings. The Spare Parts Solution Supplying spare parts for products can be challenging. They are generally composed of nume...