Additive manufacturing – A growing possibility to lighten the burden of spare parts supply

Abstract

Corporations compete constantly in the market and for market share with their products and services. In order to do so one element is research for new areas of improvement within their products and processes. The focus is often on efficiency and cost effective improvements. The goal is often to provide a superior service or product in comparison to the competition. This is not only true for first time parts but also increasingly important for secondary products-the spare parts. Spare parts and the spare parts management is becoming a production factor of growing importance. Depending on the type of product or service manufacturers will have to provide spare parts in varying quantities and versions increasing the spare parts management complexity. For the growing quantity of product types on the market requiring currently enormous warehouses to keep stock for spare parts, with corresponding high costs and complex logistics in combination with continuously decreasing product life time, decreasing time-to-market and increasing regulatory affairs Additive Manufacturing (short: AM) technology could be one solution to lighten the spare parts burden by enabling economically viable, one-off manufacturing on demand and on-location.