Impact of Merging Components by Additive Manufacturing in Spare Parts Management

This paper investigates impacts of merging components and reduction of sub-assemblies by exploiting additive manufacturing (AM) capabilities to allow for production of various components forming the final part composition as just one single part. The analysis is performed by considering a base structure for part composition, and inclusion of final components currently produced with conventional methods, and then comparing this with a list of alternatives that consist of merged components realized through AM.The comparative analysis among three main factors of reliability, logistics, and production cost and their impacts over average expected cost are the main aims of this study.