Development of a Procedure for Planning Automation Measures for the Process Chains of polymer-based Additive Manufacturing

In recent years, the development of additive manufacturing processes has led to an expansion of applications from prototyping for the validation of automotive components towards small series production. However, due to the cost sensitivity of the automotive industry, large-scale production using these technologies is currently only economical to a limited extent. In order to counter this problem, an additional increase in efficiency and utilisation through automation solutions is necessary. In this work, a phase model and a subsequent maturity model are developed, which show automation potentials within the process chain and enable the development and implementation of solutions. The phase model describes the planning and evaluation of automation concepts. A simulation is created for the identification of process bottlenecks. The maturity model includes the implementation and qualification of automation measures under industrial production conditions. The effectiveness of the phase model is validated using the example of a build unit switch of the Multi Jet Fusion technology by an autonomous guided vehicle. For the maturity model, the implementation of a fully automated production cell of the Digital Light Synthesis technology and two robots for component handling were used as validation. The approach of both models addresses the challenges for scaling the technology and can be applied to other additive manufacturing processes.