Rapid Manufacturing

• Decentralization —> Products can be manufactured where needed —> Production on site

• Individualization —> No specific tooling needed, model can easily be changed

• Short lead time —> No tooling to be manufactured, and on site production leads to a short lead time

• High shape complexity —> No restrictions to larger tools —> A high shape complexity is possible

Tooling

Conventional Manufacturing requires specific tools for given geometries/ materials or even a seperat tool production that requires a huge set of tools. Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is able to use the same tool independend of the geometry and material. (Sometimes a tool change is required for specific materials such as abbrassive filaments in FFF)

AM is superior in:

• Shape complexity: The shape complexity is nearly unrestricted (dependend on method and support philosophy)

• Hierarchial complexity: Different length scales can be combinded —> Micro, Meso and Macroscale can be combined, e.g. Infill pattern and outer contour can be specified independently

• Material complexity: Different materials can be combined

• Functional complexity: Mechanisms can be directly manufactured (e.g. rigid body joints)

Economic aspect of comparison is cost per unit.

For RM the cost per unit is relativly independent of geometric complexity and number of produced units. For Conventional manufacturing however the cost increased drasticly with geometric complexity and reduces for number of produced units: