Rapid prototyping (RP) technology is playing an important role in new product development but, because of the RP machines' costliness, many enterprises, especially those small and medium‐sized enterprises, cannot afford them. Accordingly, in this paper, a web‐based tele‐manufacturing service system for RP is proposed, which enables geographically dispersed enterprises to share RP machines.
The system is composed of three parts: online commerce, online manufacturing service, and online data management. In addition, several distinctive supporting software packages are provided, which afford great convenience to enterprises to get RP services.
It is validated that the system can result in substantial saving in the cost and product development time.
The system is also a good reference for other similar shared resources.
The system embodies the new notion that an enterprise's full‐course participation in the manufacturing service, and the rapidness of manufacturing, embody the full course of RP manufacturing service and not merely the manufacturing process itself.
