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Printing things everywhere

文章选自2017/7/1的The Economist。 这里对文章进行生词释义和句子分析，仅供学习使用，欢迎交流。

导读：3D打印技术方兴未艾， 其构建原型产品的能力令人称道。 但是这项神器的技术是否能应用于大规模生产，进一步提高生产线的自动化？ 那就需要提升打印速度，降低物料成本。 Nike, Adidas, 匹克都推出了自己的3D打印鞋子，虽然售价较高，但是也证明了3D打印大规模生产的可行性。 3D打印在其他行业大显身手指日可待。

• Printing things everywhere: 自由打印。 意在说明3D打印技术将会应用到制造业的各个角落

3D printers will shape the factory of the future

3D打印将影响未来的工厂

• shape(v.): 影响...的发展
  e.g. Like it or not, our families shape our lives and make us what we are. 无论喜欢与否，家庭影响了我们的生活， 决定了我们成为什么样的人。

MANUFACTURING advances often take time to catch on. Only later does their real significance become apparent. The flying shuttle, invented in 1733 by John Kay, a British weaver, allowed the production of wider pieces of cloth. Because its movement could be mechanised, the shuttle later became one of the innovations which paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. In 1913 Henry Ford brought motoring to the masses by making his Model T on a moving assembly line; but it was Ransom Olds, a decade earlier, who had come up with the idea of an assembly line to boost production of the Olds Curved Dash. Throughout the 1980s factory bosses scratched their heads over Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota Production System and its curious methods, such as the just-in-time delivery of parts. Now it is the global benchmark for factory efficiency.

制造业的改进总需要些时间来普及。 直到后来他们的重要性变得明显的那一刻。 例如推动工业革命的飞梭技术， 福特的可移动装配线，丰田的生产系统。

• manufacturing advance: 制造业发展
• catch on: 流行起来
• flying shuttle: 飞梭（一种纺织工具）
• pave the way for: 为...铺平道路
• the Industrial Revolution: 工业革命
• assembly line: 装配线
• scratch one's head: 苦思冥想
• global benchmark: 全球标杆
• just-in-time delivery: 实时派送

What, then, to make of the potential of Chuck Hull’s invention in 1983 of “stereolithography”? Mr Hull is the co-founder of 3D Systems, one of a growing number of firms that produce what have become known as 3D printers. These machines allow a product to be designed on a computer screen and then “printed” as a solid object by building up successive layers of material. Stereolithography is among dozens of approaches to 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing).

如何看待Chuck Hull在1983年发明的‘立体光刻技术’的前景？ 这个技术是3D打印的实现方法之一

• make of: 理解，看待
• stereolithography: 立体光刻技术
• additive manufacturing: 增材制造

Printing has become a popular way of producing one-off prototypes, because changes are more easily and cheaply made by tweaking a 3D printer’s software than by resetting lots of tools in a factory. That means the technology is ideal for low-volume production, such as turning out craft items like jewellery, or for customising products, such as prosthetics. Dental crowns and hearing-aid buds are already being made by the million with 3D printers. Because it deposits material only where it is needed, the technology is also good at making lightweight and complex shapes for high-value products ranging from aircraft to racing cars. GE has spent $1.5bn on the technology to make parts for jet engines, among other things.

打印技术已经成为了一种生产一次性原型的流行手段，因为改动产品时，只需要调整3D打印的软件，而不用重新设置工厂里的工具， 更加方便和廉价。

• one-off prototype: 一次性原型
• tweak the software: 稍微调整软件
• low-volume production: 小批量试产
• turn out: 生产，制造
  e.g. They have been turning out great blades for 400 years. 他们生产优质刀片已经有400年历史了
• prosthetic(n.): 假肢
• dental crown: 牙冠
• hearing-aid bud: 助听器
• by the milliion: 数以百万的
• jet engine: 喷气式发动机

But sceptics still rule the roost when it comes to goods made in high volumes. They say that 3D printers are too slow and too expensive—it can take two days to create a complex object. Unlike the techniques pioneered by Kay, Olds and Ohno, additive manufacturing will never revolutionise mass production. Such scepticism looks less and less credible.

但是怀疑者仍然坚信它不适合大规模生产。 他们认为3D打印又慢又贵

• rule the roost: 主宰一切
• come to: 谈到，达到

Some of the new methods of 3D printing now emerging show that its shortcomings can be overcome (see page 17). Adidas, for one, has started to use a remarkable form of it called “digital light synthesis” to produce the soles of trainers, pulling them fully formed from a vat of liquid polymer. The technique will be used in a couple of new and highly automated factories in Germany and America to bring 1m pairs of shoes annually to market much more quickly than by conventional processes. A new technique called bound-metal deposition has the potential to change the economics of metal printing, too, by building objects at a rate of 500 cubic inches an hour, compared with 1-2 cubic inches an hour using a typical laser-based metal printer.

一些新兴的3D打印技术显示其缺点可以被克服。 Adidas已经使用3D打印生产运动鞋底。

• the soles of trainers: 运动鞋的鞋底
• a vat of: 一大桶
• liquid polymer: 液体聚合物
• automated factory: 自动化工厂
• conventional process: 传统工艺
• metal printing: 金属印刷

Layers of meaning
As in previous manufacturing revolutions, factories will take time to be transformed. The dexterity of human hands still beats the efforts to introduce the fully automated production of clothing, for example. But automation is spreading to every production line in every country, and 3D printing is part of that trend. As wages in China rise, some of its mass-production lines are being fitted not just with robots but the first 3D printers, too. And as global supply chains shorten, bosses will want to use additive manufacturing to tailor products to the demands of local consumers. The full consequences of the technology’s spread are hard to predict. But when they do become clear, Mr Hull’s name may well be bracketed with the likes of Kay, Olds and Ohno.

正如之前的制造业革命， 工厂需要时间来转型。 灵巧的双手仍会在一些行业完胜自动化生产， 例如衣服生产。 但是自动化已经深入到每个国家的每一条生产线

• dexterity(n.): (双手的)灵巧， (思维的)敏捷
• introduce the fully automated production: 采用全自动生产
• mass-production lines: 大规模生产线
• fit(v.): 安装，安置
• supply chain:供应链
• the technology's spread: 技术传播
• bracket sb with...: 把...与...相提并论