Investigating Components Affecting the Resource Efficiency of Incorporating Metal Additive Manufacturing in Process Chains

Pursuing more sustainable process chains, manufacturers are constantly striving to enhance the resource efficiency of their manufacturing processes. As part of this, additive technologies have become increasingly important for reducing waste, time and costs. Various input factors affect the efficiency of an additive approach and therefore also have an impact on the sustainability. Towards the establishment of an evaluation framework, this paper investigates the components that influence the resource efficiency of additive process chains. An overview is provided on the different approaches and techniques that have been used with the aim of identifying the most influential factors. The framework was validated using a titanium aerospace benchmark component and thereby proved its ability to assist the process planners with decisions regarding process chain selection.