Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is no longer a fad in truck manufacturing.

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Layering tiny particles of plastic, metal and composites to make objects from three-dimensional math data “is a tool in the toolbox,” said Eric Starks, chief executive of FTR Transportation Intelligence. “It is a standard part of the process.”

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“When we started five or six years ago, we did have a lot of non-believers,” said Adam Crowder, manager of advanced manufacturing technologies at Volvo’s New River Valley plant in Dublin, Virginia. “It took time to start making parts, let people start using parts [and] let them see that maybe this is beneficial in what I do,” Crowder told FreightWaves. Now ideas regularly come from line workers who visit Crowder’s team in […]

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