ABSTRACT
Traditional manufacturing relies on tools and techniques developed and honed over several decades of making things. From a technological standpoint, manufacturing involves the making of products from raw materials through the use of human labor and resources that include machines, tools, and facilities. Open-source and consumer-level 3D printers allow for creating products at home, thus advancing the concept of distributed additive manufacturing. Selection of a manufacturing process or a sequence of processes depends on a variety of factors including the desired shape of a part and its material properties for performance expectations. Polymer extrusion is a process for making semifinished polymer products such as rods, tubes, sheets, and film in mass quantities. Manufacturing systems are systems that are employed to manufacture products and the parts assembled into those parts. A manufacturing system is the collection of equipment, people, information, processes, and procedures to realize the manufacturing targets of an enterprise.
