Electrochemical manufacturing technologies for Industry 4.0

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Manufacturing industry is at the dawn of a new industrial revolution. During the past two centuries, humanity passed through three industrial revolutions leading to the ability to mass produce complex products in affordable ways. However a new challenge emerged. Products have shorter life times and customers ask for individualized products. The need for small series, even batch-size 1, production appeared. Traditional manufacturing processes can hardly full-fill these needs. New manufacturing processes need to be developed which are of a new kind. Such processes must minimize manufacturing overhead appearing when the design of the product changes (e.g. avoid specific tooling), address complexity of parts and minimize number of steps leading to the final product. Additive manufacturing (AM) seems the ideal solution. However, besides having its own challenges, it would be very surprising that manufacturing industry will rely on a single technology. New processes are needed that work together with AM or independently.