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Passage 24
Rather than using custom machine tools to build early models of new parts, Ford is now using 3-D printing technology to design and test its engineers’ latest ideas. The new method allows product developers to have a _1_ in their hands in as little as a week after they create a new design-compared with having to wait three to four months _2_.
“We’re building more and more parts every day using this _3_,”says Harold Sears,a technical expert in rapid manufacturing at Ford’s design facility in Dearborn, Mich. Ford’s new hybrid transmission was developed on a 3-D printer that costs about $300,000 and which can turn a pile of aluminum powder into a working prototype in a day or two.
While low-cost 3-D printing by consumers and small businesses looks like a market now ready for takeoff, large businesses have already _4_ advanced versions of the technology. The result has been a _5_ improvement in the product-development process across a wide range of industries, including the _6_ of cars, consumer electronics, safety equipment and medical devices.
The process has done more than just save time and money. Engineers say rapid prototyping using 3-D printing is producing more _7_, higher-quality products—from custom-fitted bicycle helmets to better-sounding ear buds and loudspeakers.
Instead of waiting for tools and parts to come back from outside machine shops or injection, molding houses, product developers on tight _8_ now get more hands-on time to test their models. 3-D printers allow them to test and _9_ more versions of their prototypes—in some cases tripling the number of duplicates of a new product that can be _10_ before being produced on a large scale.
A)previously B) thereafter C) process D) elastic
E) deadlines F) manufacturing G) significant H) innovative
I)ignited J) embraced K) lubricate L) prototype
M) refined N) update O) mechanisms
