The economics of additive manufacturing : how to decide when it makes money sense to prusue additive manufacturing?

• Main Author: Muthu, Raguram
• Other Authors: David Lee Butler
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::General::Economic and business aspects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68061
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Dubbed as the second Industrial Revolution, the use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been on the rise in Europe, United States of America and even here in Singapore. AM is the “process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data usually layer upon layer” as defined by ASTM International committee (F2792)[1]. This report was scoped to AM methods that use metals as the material of choice due to the wide range of conventional manufacturing processes that it can replace and the large industrial usage of metals in sectors such as Aerospace, Electronics, Machinery and Automotive. The use of additive engineering paves the way for more innovative and complex designs to be realised and also acts as a Supply chain solution and a means to lower inventory cost. Although the additive engineering process takes a much longer time as compared to conventional subtractive processes, “it is able to produce fully-completed products in a single step, therefore reducing the manufacturing Lead time of the products” [2]. This report will examine the literature on metal additive engineering process and compare it to the conventional methods and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of adopting additive engineering. AM processes are still in its infancy stage in globally. The reason for this is because the production engineers and businessmen around the world are not aware of when additive engineering would make money sense for them and how to go about pursuing it. This report hopes to equip the potential profiteers of additive engineering around the world with a set of guidelines that will enable them to boost productivity and revenue for their business through the employment of AM in their businesses.