Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has been engaged in the conception and manufacture of discrete products to serve the functional needs of local customers and the tools (technology) needed by other craftsmen. In fact, much of the progress in civilization can be attributed to progress in discrete product manufacture. The functionality of a discrete object depends on two entities: form, and material composition. For instance, the aesthetic appearance of a sculpture depends upon its form whereas its durability depends upon the material composition. An ideal manufacturing process is one that is able to automatically generate any form (freeform) in any material. However, unfortunately, most traditional manufacturing processes are severely constrained on all these counts. There are three basic ways of creating form: conservative, subtractive, and additive. In the first approach, we take a material and apply the needed forces to deform it to the required shape, without either adding or removing material, i. e. , we conserve material. Many industrial processes such as forging, casting, sheet metal forming and extrusion emulate this approach. A problem with many of these approaches is that they focus on form generation without explicitly providing any means for controlling material composition. In fact, even form is not created directly. They merely duplicate the external form embedded in external tooling such as dies and molds and the internal form embedded in cores, etc. Till recently, we have had to resort to the 'subtractive' approach to create the form of the tooling.

Owing to the development and rapid spread of communication technologies including the Internet, the world is indeed turning into a global village. The rate of introduction of new products and technologies is steadily rising. At the same time, pressures to reduce time-to-market are mounting. Only companies that are able to realize products rapidly are able to survive today.
From a technological viewpoint, rapid product realization involves rapid design, rapid prototyping, and rapid tooling. Fortunately, a class of technologies, also collectively called rapid prototyping (RP) technologies, has emerged in the last two decades or so to meet these requirements. Early technologies merely aimed to produce single part look-alikes. However, intense R&D efforts are taking place around the world to go beyond mere look alike' single part prototyping, into functional, multi-part assemblies.
RP technologies are different from other modern manufacturing technologies in many ways. In RP, material is usually added incrementally in a layered manner and, occasionally, subtracted. Some technologies depend upon layers of resin cured under the influence of one or more CNC controlled laser beams. Others use lasers to selectively sinter layers of powdered metal. There are also RP technologies that do not use lasers at all. Indeed, RP is turning out to be a potent arena for technological creativity.
This book provides an updated overview of RP technologies at a level of detail that university engineering students taking courses on RP as well R&D and operating professionals from industry interested in RP are likely to find attractive. While the emphasis is on laser-based technologies, other processesare also discussed. With respect to each important RP process, the part/assembly modeling techniques, the materials used, process itself, advantages and disadvantages, accuracy and finish issues as well as application potential are discussed.

Thomas Jefferson said " E]very generation needs a new revolution." The revolution for the generations in the first half of the 20th century was socialism/communism. For the generations of the second half of the same century, it was the return to capitalism. For the current generation, it seems to be entrepreneurialism. Three insights concerning economic growth have become clear in recent times. Firstly, the key to economic growth is technology (T). Secondly, innovation (I) is the driver of technology growth. Finally, entrepreneurship (E) is a highly powerful but extremely underappreciated contributor to innovation. Yet there persists a paucity of academic books covering the large variety of issues impinging on TIE-exploitation from a contemporary viewpoint. This book is the third and final part of a textbook-trilogy that seeks to fill this gap. The first part (this book) is titled My World, My Nation as it examines TIE interactions from a world-perspective but stressing nation building. Part II: My Firm discusses how an established firm could prosper in the contemporary world of globalized competition and technology. Part III: My Startup discusses issues of particular interest to the growing number of youth pursuing an entrepreneurial career. The origins of this trilogy lie in the class notes compiled by the author while teaching 'Management of Technological Innovation' to undergraduate and graduate students from science, engineering and business departments. The final contents have been influenced strongly by the insights derived by him while living and working in India, the UK, Hong Kong (including extensive travels to mainland China), and the USA. Thus, rather than focusing just on the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of a developed country such as the USA (as most books on the themes examined do), this trilogy empathizes with the biases and concerns of the developing parts of the world as well. Among the topics examined in this book (Part I) are the techno-economic history of the world, the philosophies of science and technology, the industrial revolution, theories of economic growth, economic downturns, and the roles of technology and culture in national development.

Thomas Jefferson said " E]very generation needs a new revolution." The revolution for the generations in the first half of the 20th century was socialism/communism. For the generations of the second half of the same century, it was the return to capitalism. For the current generation, it seems to be entrepreneurialism. Three insights concerning economic growth have become clear in recent times. Firstly, the key to economic growth is technology (T). Secondly, innovation (I) is the driver of technology growth. Finally, entrepreneurship (E) is a highly powerful but extremely underappreciated contributor to innovation. Yet there persists a paucity of academic books covering the large variety of issues impinging on TIE-exploitation from a contemporary viewpoint. This book is the third and final part of a textbook-trilogy that seeks to fill this gap. Part I: My World, My Nation examined TIE interactions from a world-perspective but stressing nation building. Part II (this book) is titled My Firm as it discusses how an established firm could prosper in the contemporary world of globalized competition and technology. Part III: My Startup discusses issues of particular interest to the growing number of youth pursuing an entrepreneurial career. The origins of this trilogy lie in the class notes compiled by the author while teaching 'Management of Technological Innovation' to undergraduate and graduate students from science, engineering and business departments. The final contents have been influenced strongly by the insights derived by him while living and working in India, the UK, Hong Kong (including extensive travels to mainland China), and the USA. Thus, rather than focusing just on the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of a developed country such as the USA (as most books on the themes examined do), this trilogy empathizes with the biases and concerns of the developing parts of the world as well. Among the topics examined in this book (Part II) are diffusion of technology, industry dynamics, competition, competitive advantage, competitive forces, strategy development, research and development, R&D management, technology and market forecasting, organizational culture, and organizational structure.

Thomas Jefferson said " E]very generation needs a new revolution." The revolution for the generations in the first half of the 20th century was socialism/communism. For the generations of the second half of the same century, it was the return to capitalism. For the current generation, it seems to be entrepreneurialism. Three insights concerning economic growth have become clear in recent times. Firstly, the key to economic growth is technology (T). Secondly, innovation (I) is the driver of technology growth. Finally, entrepreneurship (E) is a highly powerful but extremely underappreciated contributor to innovation. Yet there persists a paucity of academic books covering the large variety of issues impinging on TIE-exploitation from a contemporary viewpoint. This book is the third and final part of a textbook-trilogy that seeks to fill this gap. Part I: My World, My Nation examined TIE interactions from a world-perspective but stressing nation building. Part II: My Firm discussed how an established firm could prosper in the contemporary world of globalized competition and technology. This third and final part-titled My Startup-discusses issues of particular interest to the growing number of youth pursuing an entrepreneurial career. The origins of this trilogy lie in the class notes compiled by the author while teaching 'Management of Technological Innovation' to undergraduate and graduate students from science, engineering and business departments. The final contents have been influenced strongly by the insights derived by him while living and working in India, the UK, Hong Kong (including extensive travels to mainland China), and the USA. Thus, rather than focusing just on the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of a developed country such as the USA (as most books on the themes examined do), this trilogy empathizes with the biases and concerns of the developing parts of the world as well. Among the topics examined in this book (Part III) are the relationship between entrepreneurship and the economy; individual, social and corporate creativity; education for creativity; innovation portfolio management; risk-taking; product development; innovation project management; entrepreneurship as a career; financing innovation and entrepreneurship; launching a startup; and lean startup principles.