There are many advantages some of the key ones are:-
-The only “Tooling” to wear out is the Artwork which can easily and cheaply be reproduced using a Photoplotter.
-Chemical Milling through an Etching machine produces burr free components, eliminating the need for time consuming deburring.
-The internal structure of the metal is unaltered such as hardness, grain structure and ductility
-Prototyping costs can be much cheaper as more than one design can be etched on one sheet
-Artworks can be rapidly changed meaning at the design phase it is cheap to change prototype designs.
-The engineering concept prototype to full production runs of many millions of parts can be rapidly instigated as the same artwork is used.