Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, students will be able to:
- Describe what makes AM disruptive.
- Propose ideas to improve the success in implementing AM.
- Understand how functions, roles, responsibilities, and interfaces may need to change to successfully implement AM.
AM is disruptive, not easily adapted
Additive manufacturing is considered a disruptive technology because it can offer an entirely new way of doing something with potential superior solutions. Innovations such as AM are called disruptive when they displace the original method of operating by offering a method or product that is significantly preferred to the original. One of the best examples of AM disrupting traditional methods is found in the orthodontics industry. In 1997, Invisalign was formed with the idea to dramatically change the braces experience with a teeth-alignment tool that is superior to braces by being removable, discreet, and custom fit for each individual’s mouth. AM offers the flexibility to create these unique molds required for mass customization of the alignment tools. Each customer requires several custom molds to accommodate different stages of the alignment process. This would be impractical and extremely expensive using traditional injection molding technologies.
The dental industry is the first big example an industry disrupted by AM, originating from a startup. Startups, inherently small and agile, often bring disruptive technologies to the marketplace first, whereas it is more difficult for larger organizations. Although additive manufacturing can offer better solutions for certain applications, large corporations often struggle to adopt disruptive technologies. These well-established organizations that currently enjoy industry dominance with legacy design and production methods, high certification and qualification requirements, experience barriers adopting AM such as inexperienced staff, resistance to change, and intensive capital requirements to try AM in-house. It’s hard to know where to start. Which part of the organization will take on this initiative? What’s the right level of staff and investment? What’s the strategy for the specific industry with respect to materials, processes, machines, and people? With all these big looming questions, it’s easy for an organization to casually explore the technology, maybe make a few trinkets, and move on to shelve AM for another 5-10 years.
Leading change, design led thinking
In order to lead a successful introduction of additive manufacturing into a business, the motivation must be defined. Clearly defining the business benefits and justification will drive adoption more effectively than any corporate initiative. This motivation comes in the form of requirements. For example, the product must be lighter, the design cycle must be faster, the envelope occupied by the part should be smaller, the performance must be improved, etc. AM is a toolset for accomplishing innovative designs that can achieve the requirements in new and sometimes superior ways. With the exception of reducing the consumption of high-cost materials, it is not an alternative production method to be considered at the end of the design cycle for an existing part already tailored for traditional manufacturing. This is a common pitfall in additive adoption and often gives newcomers the impression that AM is expensive, slow, and full of design rule exceptions. The best way to approach an AM project is to let the requirements drive the design, and design for the process from the onset.
Trade it before you try it
Now consider that an application has been identified with some great DfAM features and associated business benefits. While it is tempting to dive in with personnel, program plans, and target delivery dates, it is prudent to first conduct a paper trade study to define what actually needs to be true for there to be a value proposition. A trade study is a documented decision-making process to narrow and choose the best solution based on assumptions and desired characteristics. The trade study should also identify key assumptions and associated risk mitigation strategies that prove or disprove those assumptions. One specific risk mitigation strategy explained by The Lean Startup includes creating a series targeted low effort versions of the product and associated low effort tests to quickly verify the assumptions before further investment. This allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning with the least amount of effort. This approach of paper study first, followed by strategic risk reduction plan, will greatly reduce investment uncertainty.
When considering the decision of when to utilize AM, consider the extremely fast pace of change in such a new domain. In a quickly maturing technology like AM, a constraint one year could be an opportunity better the following year. New printers, materials, and processes can improve speed or efficiency by 10-30 percentage points in less than a year’s time. With such knowledge, companies can determine when a specific process or decision might be profitable. For example, replacing a conventional part with an AM part might not make sense now (the business case may fail), but it could introduce cost savings as soon as the print speed increases by 10%.
Skills and Capability
Following a successful trade study, the project begins, but even this can be disruptive to the typical organizational factions. Although the traditional groups like design engineering, quality assurance, etc., are all still required just like for any manufacturing process, initially some upskilling for AM will be required for each of these core competencies. Additive manufacturing is a team activity, with a team composed of many personnel – or even teams of personnel – working closely together. Some of the necessary team areas may include design engineering (with DfAM skills), manufacturing process engineering, material science, environmental health and safety, quality assurance, quality control, procurement, operations, program management, and sales or business development. In a typical organization, these functions would be spread across the business, but at least in the early adoption levels of AM, it may be advantageous to form a more agile cross-functional AM team. One reason for this is that for existing manufacturing processes, the different roles, responsibilities, and interactions between the functions has been established; while in the case of AM, it may be necessary to make adjustments in these to better accommodate the new technology.
Let’s run through a detailed situational example:
Traditional situation: If a part machined from solid plate is determined to be too porous during penetrant inspection, the part may be scrapped – wasting time and resources – particularly the plate itself. IOn this case, the plate producer is generally responsible for providing a new piece of plate for free, while the machine shop winds up absorbing the wasted machining cost. The machine shop is willing to sign up to this because they know from experience that about 0.1% of parts will be scrapped for porosity, so they build that into their cost.
AM situation: Now consider the part is made using AM. In this case, while it is expected that the AM producer needs to replace any parts (and the underlying materials) that are scrapped, the machine shop may be less willing to absorb the wasted machining time because they don’t know how often this may happen. In order to resolve this impasse, it may be necessary for the organization (specifically the procurement personnel) to change the standard contract wording so that the machine shop can be reimbursed for any scrappage due to porosity in the AM part.
The above example delves into different personnel (procurement) and processes (contracts) than we have considered throughout most of this text. That is because, again, the business element brings in nearly every facet of an organization or organizations. As complex and multifaceted as we have seen AM to be, it goes even wider than the groups working on the parts or builds.
The AM team will look different depending on what part of the application of AM the organization is focused on. A service bureau, for example, will require a team with deep expertise in making and delivering quality parts and will benefit from a strong team of manufacturing process engineers, quality engineers, and customer focused sales / business development personnel. A manufacturer, however, may choose to partner with a service bureau with those skills to make parts and focus instead of design, analysis, and qualification of the AM parts. In this scenario, the manufacturer should train and deploy a team of skilled design engineers with deep, system level product knowledge, armed with DfAM skills, to create new value and product differentiation through AM. In all of these scenarios, the organizational functions are the same as before, but the skillsets to understand and implement AM will need to be trained or hired into those groups.