On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings
Additive manufacturing offers great potential for both product and process innovation in manufacturing across a wide range of industry sectors. To date, most applications that have been reported use additive manufacturing to produce either customized parts or produce at small scale, while the volume...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Wiley
2019
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| _version_ | 1826272444556509184 |
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| author | Baumers, M Holweg, M |
| author_facet | Baumers, M Holweg, M |
| author_sort | Baumers, M |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Additive manufacturing offers great potential for both product and process innovation in manufacturing across a wide range of industry sectors. To date, most applications that have been reported use additive manufacturing to produce either customized parts or produce at small scale, while the volume manufacture of standard parts largely remains a conjecture. In this paper we report on a series of experiments designed to elucidate how quantity, quality and cost relate in additive manufacturing processes. Our findings show that traditional economies of scale only partially apply to additive manufacturing processes. We also identify four build failure modes and quantify their combined effect on unit cost, exposing an unusual property whereby the cost-optimal operating point occurs below maximum machine capacity utilization. Furthermore, once additive manufacturing technology is used at full capacity utilization, we find no evidence of a positive effect of increased volume on unit cost. We do, however, identify learning curve effects related to process repetition and operator experience. Based on our findings we propose a set of general characteristics of the additive manufacturing process for further testing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:12:40Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:5256dcff-91a0-4387-9027-37a1726e7408 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:12:40Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:5256dcff-91a0-4387-9027-37a1726e74082022-03-26T16:25:04ZOn the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findingsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:5256dcff-91a0-4387-9027-37a1726e7408Symplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2019Baumers, MHolweg, MAdditive manufacturing offers great potential for both product and process innovation in manufacturing across a wide range of industry sectors. To date, most applications that have been reported use additive manufacturing to produce either customized parts or produce at small scale, while the volume manufacture of standard parts largely remains a conjecture. In this paper we report on a series of experiments designed to elucidate how quantity, quality and cost relate in additive manufacturing processes. Our findings show that traditional economies of scale only partially apply to additive manufacturing processes. We also identify four build failure modes and quantify their combined effect on unit cost, exposing an unusual property whereby the cost-optimal operating point occurs below maximum machine capacity utilization. Furthermore, once additive manufacturing technology is used at full capacity utilization, we find no evidence of a positive effect of increased volume on unit cost. We do, however, identify learning curve effects related to process repetition and operator experience. Based on our findings we propose a set of general characteristics of the additive manufacturing process for further testing. |
| spellingShingle | Baumers, M Holweg, M On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title | On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title_full | On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title_fullStr | On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title_full_unstemmed | On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title_short | On the economics of additive manufacturing: experimental findings |
| title_sort | on the economics of additive manufacturing experimental findings |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT baumersm ontheeconomicsofadditivemanufacturingexperimentalfindings AT holwegm ontheeconomicsofadditivemanufacturingexperimentalfindings |