Not every design should be made using additive technology. But answers to eight questions will help you make the right choice between additive, machining, and injection molding for your production needs.<\/p>\n
Despite the buzz and attention on additive manufacturing (AM), not every design should be built using an additive process. Just as there are tradeoffs on when to use machining or injection molding, there are tradeoffs with additive manufacturing.<\/p>\n
Answers to a few key questions will help you determine whether your design is best handled through additive manufacturing.<\/p>\n
1. What\u2019s the application?<\/strong> 2. Are there any critical part features?<\/strong> But keep in mind, each additive technology offers different capabilities with regards to part features. For example, each additive technology has different capabilities for wall thickness or accuracies. Thus, if the wall thickness or the tolerances are critical, the part may not be a good fit for additive.<\/p>\n Combining parts into one unit can be a reason to build a part through AM. \u201cBut there are costs in taking a part down from X number of components to one,\u201d says Niekamp. One of those costs involves testing. Depending on the industry, the new, lower part count design will have to prove it is as capable as the previous multi-part version.<\/p>\n Part consolidation is often a reason to consider additive manufacturing over other technologies. Often a heat sink can be made as one piece.<\/p>\n Sometimes you can offset testing costs with savings in other areas, such as shipping, controlling the supply base, sourcing, eliminating other processes, and better lead times.<\/p>\n \u201cDesigners also consolidate parts because certain components are now hard to find when you\u2019re looking at the sourcing chain,\u201d says Jesse Marin, Solutions Engineering Partner, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing. \u201cIf you can consolidate parts you\u2019re eliminating the process of having to go out and purchase six different components from four different suppliers. Then there\u2019s lead times and scheduling and ensuring that they arrive on time and are to spec, so there\u2019s a lot of that process that gets eliminated just by part or assembly consolidation.<\/p>\n Another part characteristic that lends itself to AM is the need for customization.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso consider those design situations where you have a number of parts with slight changes on them,\u201d adds Marin. Some examples include high-end aircraft interior components or custom medical applications where each patient\u2019s uniqueness rules out full standardization of a particular product.<\/p>\n 3. Is the design too complex to be made other ways?<\/strong> 4. What material will the part need?<\/strong> \u201cAdditive has been shown to be a true enabler in terms of design freedom that can lead to truly disruptive ways of solving a design problem. A design engineer who is able to approach design problems through an additive mindset will find an amazing level of design flexibility. Then, once designs are fleshed out, a business case study will highlight the right path to take from a design to manufacturing.\u201d Dave Chapin,Addworks Design Engineering Leader, GE Additive.<\/p>\n While the availability of a range of materials for AM is improving, today there are still some limitations.<\/p>\n Material selection is a critical part of choosing to use additive manufacturing. And the material choice is often a function of the application.<\/p>\n \u201cHigh heat, certain rigidity or flexibility needs, any really specific material property called out for in a spec that must be matched exactly will limit which parts can go to additive,\u201d says Niekamp.<\/p>\n Depending on whom you listen to, additive materials that are \u201cABS-like\u201d or \u201cPLA-like\u201d are not going to give you the mechanical features you need. This belief is not always true, and is often more the result of marketing branding.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of proprietary materials that vendors are purposely keeping proprietary, materials that could actually be superior in their features. A \u201clike\u201d material doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t \u201creal\u201d or suitable, says Niekamp.<\/p>\n With additive, a designer often must use a \u201clike\u201d material because it\u2019s been formulated to build specifically with an additive technology. Especially for plastics and resins, for example, many \u201clike\u201d materials have been formulated to extrude or to cure with a specific light process properly.<\/p>\n But the material situation is changing. Additive materials have made strides. Notes Marin, several additive systems actually print in thermoplastic production grade material. Not \u201cABS-like,\u201d but actual ABS, just processed in filament form so the machine can accommodate the manufacturing process with that material. \u201cWe print in polycarbonate, in PC-ABS blends, in Ultem 9085 and 1010 which are also CNC materials. We\u2019re now entering the age of actual materials.\u201d<\/p>\n 5. What costs are you looking to reduce through AM?<\/strong> The use of additive in a corporation suggests setting aside resources to think about additive versus rushing products to market. It will be important to spend some R&D dollars to address the opportunity to make your company not just one step better, but exponentially better than your competitors, because your parts are designed in a different way that no one else can do.\u00a0 \u00a0Jim Niekamp, President, RPM Fast.<\/p>\n Consider whether a design could include internal aspects that cannot be handled through traditional production. Usually, complex designs are best produced through additive technology. Designs that combine functions are also good choices for additive.<\/p>\n 6. How many parts must be made?<\/strong> 7. Which additive technology should you use?<\/strong> \u201cKnowledge of the design rules for each additive process is a must to be able to capitalize on the benefits of each process for a design,\u201d says Chapin.<\/p>\n In general, designers will find they will need more than one additive technology, for example, they will need both stereolithography and material jetting, and possibly a third option. Answers to the earlier questions will help narrow the choice.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some cases, extremes will make the choice clear. For example, extremes like super demanding temperatures or high requirements for energy transfer or loading requirements may give you a clear idea of the best additive manufacturing process to use, but for the most part the choice of the best additive manufacturing process is often a combination,\u201d says Marin.<\/p>\n When considering additive manufacturing for a part, once a designer has developed the design, a business case study can highlight the right path to take from manufacturing standpoint.<\/p>\n 8. Should you use a service provider rather than go in-house?<\/strong> Will multiple departments want to use additive technology? Will there be enough work for the equipment, or too much?<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have a line up of products that you know you\u2019re going to need to use, that you can produce with additive over the next three years, and that you can put enough volume on a printer that you\u2019ll have at least 75% capacity usage on that printer, in-house is a good choice,\u201d says Neikamp. \u201cYou\u2019ll want enough variety of equipment so as not to limit your creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n Does your company have the resources to implement the necessary additive technology?<\/p>\n \u201cFor example,\u201d notes Marin, \u201cif you\u2019re implementing a DMLS system you\u2019re probably looking at upwards of half a million dollars to implement a full system and that includes not only the hardware purchase but the material, the system requirements, the installation, the training behind it, the software behind it, qualification builds to make sure the machine is up and running properly and that can easily extend anywhere from two to five months depending on your expertise in implementing a system so do you have that amount of time?\u201d<\/p>\n Another factor is do you want to develop in-house expertise for the future? Once designers understand how to work with additive technology, it enables them to develop unique parts that can give their company a competitive edge in an industry.<\/p>\n \u201cMany factors can influence this outside of a simple business case evaluation including supply chain strategy, facility availability and suitability, part volume, existing infrastructure, (to name a few). Having said all that, we highly recommend that organizations engage with one of our service bureaus to print sample parts and test part quality,\u201d says Chapin.<\/p>\n Source: Leslie Langnau –\u00a0www.makepartsfast.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not every design should be made using additive technology. But answers to eight questions will help you make the right choice between additive, machining, and injection molding for your production needs. Despite the buzz and attention on additive manufacturing (AM), not every design should be built using an additive process. Just as there are tradeoffs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","category-library"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe final use plays a paramount role in whether a design is built through machining, injection molding, or additive manufacturing. \u201cIt\u2019s super important to understand how the part is going to be used,\u201d says Jim Niekamp, President, RPM Fast. \u201cWhether it\u2019s simply for fit, form, and function, or it\u2019s going to be a production part, the application really drives the decision to use additive manufacturing. And the application will push you to certain directions in terms of what type of printer technologies you\u2019re able to use.<\/p>\n
\nWall thicknesses, tolerances, part size, part complexity, part count reduction, customization\u2014all will influence the choice to use additive manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\nA natural fit for additive manufacturing is when a design is too complex to build using traditional manufacturing methods like machining or thermoforming. Additive manufacturing essentially eliminates many limitations in regards to axes of freedom. \u201cNot to say that it\u2019s fully Carte Blanche in how you want, but it makes it a lot easier to make more complex ergonomic designs right off the bat,\u201d adds Marin.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMaterial selection is a critical part of the design process based on the part function.\u00a0 Material class selection can be based on some fundamental operational requirements of the part, such as operating temperature, environmental conditions, mechanical property or physical property needs, or cost targets,\u201d says Dave Chapin, Addworks Design Engineering Leader, GE Additive.<\/p>\n
\nMany claim additive technology will reduce the cost of a part. There are several types of costs a design can reduce through an AM process, including production, supply chain, assembly, inspection, and so on. Which of these costs is the focus will help determine the most appropriate AM technology to use.<\/p>\n
\nAdditive technologies are making parts faster, but they not necessarily as fast as traditional production technologies. For low quantities, often defined as 10,000 or less, additive can be highly cost efficient, especially if fixtures and tooling are involved.<\/p>\n
\nAdditive manufacturing has grown past the seven different ways to build parts layer by layer from a few years ago. Today there are several versions of stereolithography, several versions of material jetting, laser sintering, electron beam technology, and more. As the additive industry works to build parts faster and faster, new ways to build parts are here and more are coming.<\/p>\n
\nIncreasingly, the answer is you will want both. Service providers can deliver prototypes or final parts fast. In-house additive benefits and enhances the design skills of the design team. Which ever the direction, consider the following points:<\/p>\n