Why should you be interested in additive manufacturing? Here are some of the benefits and new possibilities AM could bring to your company.
Additive Manufacturing: technological opportunities
Additive manufacturing (AM) is transitioning from prototyping applications to production. Today, AM can process a wide range of engineering materials, which are ready for demanding applications. The technology is well suited for:
- Existing designs of legacy components and spare parts that can be manufactured cheaper and faster when compared to conventional methods
- Entirely new designs or (re)design of parts that are geometrically complex and lighter, which are too difficult or too expensive to build using traditional dies, molds, milling, and machining operations
Reduce your operating cost: manufacture parts on-demand
Whether AM is used in production or prototyping, lead times and production cost can be reduced when manufacturing requires to be resilient, flexible, and in low to mid volumes. The manufacturing of parts requires no tooling and costly up-front cost. Part information and related data can be stored and transferred digitally reducing inventory and logistic cost in production. Finally, parts are delivered according to the required specifications and can be produced closer to the customer.
Digital inventories: shifting to digitalised manufacturing
CAD files and structured inventory data are essential in our digital manufacturing world. More and more companies are building up their digital inventory. This lowers the boundary for entry and enables an efficient transition into AM.
Why SelectAM?
SelectAM makes the transition into AM easier. It allows you to screen and identify how your company can streamline production by analysing the supply chain, technical, economic, and (re)design potential of AM in your organisation:
Simulate your part inventory and find AM business cases automaticallyWe help you screen the most relevant industrial AM materials and systems available on the market. SelectAM can simulate manufacturing with AM machines and materials to evaluate the (re)design potential, calculate the impact of part nesting on production optimisation, and assess direct and indirect AM processes including post-processing steps.
We help you estimate the economic impact of integrating AM into your manufacturing workflow to improve your financial performance and time-to-marketSelectAM can determine the total cost of a switch to AM through a comprehensive make-or-buy analysis within extensive part inventories (top-down) or single part-to-part comparisons (bottom-up).