FAA to fully understand the material characteristics of these new parts and achieve part certification with the governing bodies responsible for ensuring flight safety—and the automotive industry will face a similar challenge. Thus, the aspect of mate- rial characteristics in solving M of these technical and financial equations in SAM-CT is not trivial. Finally, CT is the


cost and throughput of an AM process compared with a conventional pro- cess. Cost is the Achilles heel of any new technology that forays into the automotive space. In this industry, a penny a part savings is a major accom- plishment—not to mention the capital expense of displac- ing the vast installed infrastructure and associated logistics. Cost is closely coupled with throughput. If it takes six weeks and $10000 to build a prototype but additive can make the part in two days at a cost of $1000, the decision is obvious: Use additive. We have used it for decades, saved money and streamlined product-de- velopment discussions. When we move to production, the challenge for CT-SAM is immense. For example, we can fit an engine block into a metal powder machine (so S is OK) and we can machine the finished product (so A is ok) and, for argu- ments sake, let us assume we have a full understanding of the material characteristics (so perhaps M is fine). We have solved SAM (we can make


it). Now we move to CT and the ques- tion becomes should we make it? The additive machines would build a block for about $25000 but the production costs with casting are about two or- ders of magnitude lower, so although we could build the part it would make zero economic sense.


ing in the story is the fact that GE’s breakthrough was the fact that it took a design made of about 17 parts, each of which had to be manufactured and then assembled. Thus, we can assume that the newly morphed product rep- resented a considerable cost avoid- ance and presumably was in the same ballpark as the cumula- tive cost of all the pieces of the old assembly. Without question,


major breakthroughs will be needed in the mate- rial, machines and post- processing for the tech- nology to venture into the automotive indus- try. A significant >10X reduction in final cost is required for additive part making to begin to move into production levels (even for volumes in the low thousands) to be truly considered “auto- motive manufacturing.” The other end of the fulcrum will be a totally


This sounds depressing but we


are missing one angle. If we limit ourselves to part substitution, then additive looks pretty unattractive for automotive production but maybe only if we build “the same old parts.” One of the keys to determining whether this technology is a game changer will be the skill with which one is able to totally redesign a part or, better yet, an assembly of parts. The current process of part substi- tution merely creates a physical entity of identical design at lower through- put and higher cost. There has been great excitement


with respect to the strides GE is mak- ing in using metal additive technology for its fuel injector. What is often miss-


different mindset in part design that will be needed to exploit the op- portunities AM provides in terms of component mass efficiency, which is not possible with current manufac- turing that depends on essentially “orthogonal” tooling.


So perhaps the challenge from the


automotive community to the additive system experts is twofold: Solve SAM with hardware and material innovation and develop design tools that help us reinvent parts and morph assem- blies. Then perhaps we could make an engine 10 times lighter that only an additive process can make. And if we solve SAM and the related design challenges, the cost and throughput may solve themselves.


7


March 2017


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