Assessment of the Potential Economic Impact of the Use of AM Technologies in the Cost Levels of Manufacturing and Stocking of Spare Part Products

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are appropriate manufacturing technologies to produce low rotation products of high added value. Products in the spare parts business usually have discontinuous demand levels of reduced numbers of parts. Indeed, spare parts inventories handle myriad of produc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2018-08, Vol.11 (8), p.1429
Main Authors: Minguella-Canela, Joaquim, Morales Planas, Sergio, Gomà Ayats, Joan Ramon, de Los Santos López, M Antonia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additive manufacturing
Anàlisi de processos de negoci i de fabricació
Aspectes econòmics
Cost
Costos de producció
Costs, Industrial
Design
Direcció d'operacions
Economia i organització d'empreses
Economia industrial
Engineering economy
Enginyeria de producció
Enginyeria mecànica
Fabricació
Free-form filament fabrication (FFF)
Manufacturing processes
Production engineering
Spare parts
Stock
Topological optimization
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
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Summary:Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are appropriate manufacturing technologies to produce low rotation products of high added value. Products in the spare parts business usually have discontinuous demand levels of reduced numbers of parts. Indeed, spare parts inventories handle myriad of products that require big immobilized investments while having an intrinsic risk of no-use (for example due to obsolescence or spoilage). Based on these issues, the present work analyses the fundamental cost factors in a real case study of a company dedicated to the supply of spare parts for fluid conduction systems. Real inventory data is assessed to determine the product taxonomy and its associated costs. A representative product of the stock is analyzed in detail on original manufacturing costs, in AM costs and then redesigned with topological optimization to reduce the AM cost levels (via design for additive manufacturing). A general equation for cost assessment is formulated. Given the specific data collected from the company, the parameters in this general equation are calculated. Finally, the general equation and the product cost reduction achieved are used to explore the potential economic impact of the use of AM technologies in the cost levels of manufacturing and stocking of spare part products.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma11081429