Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, students will be able to:
- Describe a maturity model for AM adoption.
- Understand the technological and people requirements for AM adoption.
The AM Maturity Model, used throughout the book, is a way to approach marrying the product requirements to the skills and knowledge of AM. The Barnes Global Advisors (TBGA) pioneered the use of a maturity model to describe an approach to adopting AM throughout a product or design lifecycle. The scenarios on the Y axis describe increasing product or design complexity and therefore increasing product requirements. The X axis contemplates the necessary learning to be able to deploy, make, or manufacture a part to meet the requirements.
It is normal for one to see the culmination of an organization’s efforts in AM and want to replicate that success. Often, this success was built on years of development and trial and error. Jumping straight into making complex parts (e.g. Level 4) requires the highest level of skill and training. This is analogous to running a marathon. A runner trains extensively to be prepared to finish a marathon race. Without training, you introduce a high risk which could include injury or worse.
The AM Maturity Model contemplates both direct and indirect use of AM. At the lower levels, the indirect methods include prototypes (Level 0) and tooling (Level 1). In these efforts, AM is being deployed to support some other goal, but the AM part is not the part to be put in service. Prototyping and tooling are great places to begin an organization’s journey in AM because of the reduced requirements.
In the direct use of AM, the part made by AM is intended to go into service. This begins with replacing a legacy part with a part made by AM (Level 2) and is typically very restrictive from a design flexibility standpoint. Progressing to Level 3, the ability for AM to integrate complexity comes into play as several parts are unitized into a single assembly or part. At Level 4, the organization’s design, materials, people, and equipment knowledge is so extensive they can make a part with unrivaled performance that is not only complex and unitized but also is multi-functional. Perhaps it is a structural part that carries a load but also serves to exchange heat or employ a sensor.
Level 0
Prototypes for product development or system testing describes parts made at this level. We may be interested in form, fit or function but not all three. Making pieces for product development assist us in visualizing how the product could be used, for example. In other scenarios, AM pieces are made as stand ins for limited duration testing. Level 0 is a great place to gain experience initially, because the requirements are often not as tough, the risk is lower, and the learning opportunity is greater. At this level, it is expected you will start to explore the types of AM equipment and materials but neither may be critical to success.
Level 1
As we continue the path of indirect parts, Level 1 use of AM is oriented at making tools or fixtures which are assistive in manufacturing or assembly of the final system. Making tooling has been a successful path for many organizations to reduce the cost of manufacturing for legacy processes that can have expensive or lengthy lead times for tooling, such as casting or reinforced polymer composites. The exploration of the machine type and mode narrows, and materials selection is more critical. In addition, traceability and/or configuration control increase in importance. You will also find that other entities like supply chain players become stakeholders in the outcome. Lastly, design thinking and AM thinking is starting to mature, as there is now more experience manufacturing components and using different types of machines.
Level 2
Now we begin the journey into direct application of AM, as these parts will enter service. At Level 2, the parts look very much like they did with legacy manufacturing methods. This could be due to many reasons such as AM being used to support spare parts, obsolescence or a very restrictive design space where the ability to make changes are minimal. There could be larger objectives to achieve, such as simply reducing risk by employing a new manufacturing method and seeing different materials performance. Whatever the reason, Level 2 presents a significant challenge, because the designer has little room to maneuver and the design was likely optimized for a different process. Later, we will describe the restrictive and opportunistic design space with modify for AM (MfAM) and design for AM (DfAM), but at Level 2, MfAM skills are more dominant than DfAM.
The broader organization will become more involved in Level 2 as you will have to build a strategy for AM adoption and assess things like the supply chain as you are using a new technology, likely with new vendors, and/or new suppliers of materials or feedstock. Inspection, material specifications, process specifications and design allowables may also be important considerations to support manufacturing. The supply chain implications are discussed in more depth in Chapter 8 The Business of Additive Manufacturing.
Level 3
At this level, the AM skills are becoming more critical. As parts are being consolidated and joints or interfaces are being eliminated, likely a structural efficiency benefit is being sought. This efficiency will give rise to weight savings or better performance and endurance.
Financially, the AM part will likely have fewer manufacturing steps and decreased assembly time, thus collapsing the Bill of Material (BOM), drawing count, vendors and touch labor to assemble.
DfAM skills are now quite high, and you will understand that you may now have to start making design considerations for the additive manufacturing process. For example, if you redesign the part and make it too light, other considerations will come into play.
The organization will continue to lean in to support the design and manufacture; computers and algorithms can mathematically design and optimize, but they have no consideration for practical aspects, such as a part’s surrounding environment. MfAM is still very relevant when it comes time to print the part successfully or meet the final part dimensional requirements by adding stock during printing, for example, to be able to machine to final tolerances.
Level 4
At this Level, a part can only be made economically through use of AM. There are less examples of Level 4 parts today due to the merging of the need for world class DfAM, supply chain support, marketing awareness and general management support to acknowledge the need to integrate organizational awareness. The Level 4 part will have unrivaled performance and will likely impact the system it sits within, thus driving the need for organization wide AM awareness. There will be a need to fully appreciate the system level tradeoffs in design for additive manufacturing.