Assessing the performance of additive manufacturing applications

Additive manufacturing offers vast potentials in the development of competitive products. As technological readiness level increases and novel software solutions arise, engineers can fully exploit the design advantages AM has to offer, namely design freedom. To successfully implement AM products in industry, decision makers must see a clear advantage in producing a design additively, that is a trade-off of AM costs and benefits. AM parts can improve product performance, e.g. weight savings, or improve processing, e.g. manufacturing objectives. AM has the potential to create value on both dimensions, but many studies consider exclusively either the product- or the process performance by assessing the costs of an isolated part. To close this gap, this work presents a framework for evaluating the value of additive and conventionally manufactured products by comparing the product-related to the process-related performance. The framework is applied to a case study consisting of a flying vehicle with an annular wing. Results show that AM products can be competitive if design advantages are used to leverage both, the product- and the process-related performance.