2014/12/12 by Jephias Gwamuri, Ben Wittbrodt, Nick C. Anzalone +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Business, Management and Accounting · Mathematics · #Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies #Economic and Technological Innovation #Innovation and Socioeconomic Development #Bespoke #3D printing #Leverage (statistics) #Computer science #Distributed manufacturing #Scale (ratio) #Product (mathematics) #Manufacturing engineering #3d printed #Industrial engineering #Mechanical engineering #Business #Engineering #Artificial intelligence #Advertising #Mathematics
paper · pdf · doi:10.12924/cis2014.02010030
openalex publication_date 2014/12/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Although the trend in manufacturing has been towards centralization to leverage economies of scale, the recent rapid technical development of open-source 3-D printers enables low-cost distributed bespoke production. This paper explores the potential advantages of a distributed manufacturing model of high-value products by investigating the application of 3-D printing to self-refraction eyeglasses. A series of parametric 3-D printable designs is developed, fabricated and tested to overcome limitations identified with mass-manufactured self-correcting eyeglasses designed for the developing world's poor. By utilizing 3-D printable self-adjustable glasses, communities not only gain access to far more diversity in product design, as the glasses can be customized for the individual, but 3-D printing also offers the potential for significant cost reductions. The results show that distributed manufacturing with open-source 3-D printing can empower developing world communities through the ability to print less expensive and customized self-adjusting eyeglasses. This offers the potential to displace both centrally manufactured conventional and self-adjusting glasses while completely eliminating the costs of the conventional optics correction experience, including those of highly-trained optometrists and ophthalmologists and their associated equipment. Although, this study only analyzed a single product, it is clear that other products would benefit from the same approach in isolated regions of the developing world.