Selection of Additive Manufacturing Technologies Using Decision Methods

The use of Rapid Prototyping technologies is becoming increasingly popular due to the reduction of machinery prices. Consequently, more and more industries now have the opportunity to apply such processes to improve their product development cycles. The term Rapid Prototyping was commercially introduced to highlight the first application, the quickly production of prototypes into the product development process. Improvements were done in the quality of the equipments and the variety of materials. Furthermore, new processes were introduced into the market, which enlarged the application’s range of Rapid Prototyping technologies. As a consequence, new terms were also used to describe the final application of such technologies as Rapid Manufacturing (RM); Rapid Tooling (RT), which indicates the use of such technologies to produce moulds and tooling, etc. However, as important as to identify the technical limits of the each technology, it is needed to balance the characteristics of each process in order to decide which one fulfills the product requirements the best way. And this should be done systematically using a decision method. The decision method, in turn, should be able to evaluate the relative weights of product requirements related to the process capabilities. It is not just a matter of manufacturing process substitution. It is possible – and desirable in case of RM – to modify designing and product development processes too. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first part considers prototyping applications, where the requirements of the part to be produced are not too severe. In this case, available process capabilities should be used to satisfy costumer’s needs, usually at the lowest manufacturing cost and delivery time possible. The second section is intended to those who are concerned in Rapid Manufacturing Applications. Rapid Manufacturing means that the parts will be produced as end product, thus, the product requirements are more rigorous then prototyping applications.