Chapter 1
Introduction: Moving into Additive Manufacturing

Case Introduction: Current work roles in manufacturing and how they change in AM

Great West Manufacturing (GWM), a medium-size manufacturing firm, recently experienced a change in leadership. The board of directors has charged the new CEO, Sherman Potter, to explore and implement additive manufacturing (AM) to better prepare the firm for long-term viability in their increasingly competitive manufacturing space. The new CEO has made it clear that GWM will continue to manufacture the current line of recreation and athletics end-user products but would like to expand operations to include new opportunities facilitated by AM. As part of the exploration effort, Potter assigned Pete Granger (manufacturing process engineer), Bob Nelson (design and materials engineer), Edgar Remmins (manufacturing technician), and Roxanne Jensen (compliance, testing, and quality control engineer) to the AM Pilot Project team. Their charge is to investigate the knowledge and skills needed to support additive manufacturing at GWM and formulate a plan to conduct an additive manufacturing pilot test at GWM.

In their first meeting, each team member revealed that s/he had minimal understanding of additive manufacturing with some familiarity with 3D printing concepts. The team's experience in traditional manufacturing ranged from 2 to 24 years in their respective career areas. The group decided to start by preparing a list of GWM's manufacturing roles and responsibilities to compare current talent to the knowledge and skills needed for additive manufacturing. Their focus would then shift to exploring additive manufacturing and 3D printing (AM) requirements and processes in preparation for developing a proposal to initiate a pilot project within GWM.

INTRODUCTION

Imagine the year is 2025. The world has quelled COVID-19, the United States has convinced many American manufacturers to move production back to the states, and focused financial investments have spurred significant ongoing growth in the manufacturing sector. Simultaneously, the manufacturing workforce has suffered a hit from the loss of seasoned employees through retirement. Manufacturing has had limited success in recruiting high school and college graduates and is struggling to find employees with the right skillsets to advance additive manufacturing and other emerging production approaches. Fortunately, many great opportunities for exciting work and career growth exist for those who choose a manufacturing career path. While you may have significant experience in different aspects of manufacturing as a manufacturing practitioner, are you ready to meet the challenge of implementing additive manufacturing technologies and processes in the next four to five years?

In the early 1980s, Chuck Hall produced the first stereolithography part, and the following year filed a patent for the Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA). Figure 1.1 displays the first SLA machine and printed part. Additive manufacturing, previously termed rapid prototyping, was officially started when 3D Systems introduced the first commercially available AM system, the SLA-1, in 1987. Various terms referred to additive manufacturing until 2009 when the ASTM F42 committee formed supported by SME's RTAM community. In 1993, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) patented "three-dimensional printing techniques," which specifically referenced binder jetting (Sachs, Haggerty, Cima and Williams, 1993). The patent defined the process as:

.making a component by depositing a first layer of a fluent porous material, such as a powder, in a confined region and then depositing a binder material to selected regions of the layer of powder material to produce a layer of bonded powder material at the selected regions. (US Patent US5204055A, Abstract)

Three-dimensional printing, abbreviated as "3DP" or "3D printing," has evolved and is now used to refer to inkjet-based, low-cost, hobbyist 3D printers. 3D printing is considered synonymous with additive manufacturing. In general, industry insiders use additive manufacturing or AM, and the public typically uses 3D printing or 3DP to refer to the industry. For this book, both terms refer to the broad range of technologies and processes that comprise additive manufacturing.

Figure 1.1 First Stereolithography Machine and First 3D Printed Part

Source: Courtesy of 3D Systems, Inc.

Additive manufacturing and 3D printing (AM) technologies began to appear in the 1980s and have since become a significant force for revolutionizing product design, production process efficiency and effectiveness, supply chains, and innovation processes. According to Grand View Research (2020), the global AM market will exceed $35 billion by 2027. North America will likely maintain the largest market share of around 35%.

The primary business drivers for rapid growth and investment in AM continue to be enhanced product manufacturing and reduced time to market.

Continued growth and proliferation of AM are expected, with two key challenges that may hamper growth over the coming decade:

1. An overzealous focus on prototyping and low-volume production prevents organizations from realizing AM benefits at all phases of the manufacturing process.
2. Lack of a skilled workforce hampers the opportunities enabled by evolving technologies and processes.

Misguided Focus Prevents Realization of AM Benefits

AM was initially used in prototyping and to produce complex customized or low-volume production parts. These focused applications of AM led to the limited adoption of additive manufacturing technologies. For example, consider traditional injection molding, where a liquid polymer injects into a mold. When evaluated for use in injection molding, the AM focus tends to address increased part complexity, eliminate the mold, or incorporate conformal cooling, multimaterial or gradient-material usage, and speed. There is frequently a failure to consider the application and benefits in the other injection molding elements enabled by AM. In many circumstances, additive manufacturing is critical in providing elaborate fixtures, conformal cooling, mold inserts, and other support areas of the injection molding process. The aerospace and medical industries, which focused on prototyping in their initial AM application, provide another example. These industries realized significant cost savings and reduced lead-times by leveraging the technologies for design verification or presurgical models. However, other significant advantages exist for organizations that push past this initial narrow scope of AM applications.

The shift to AM requires considerable capital investment. For manufacturing firms to adopt these evolving technologies, key decision makers need to understand and leverage the broad range of benefits from more widespread use and application of AM technologies across the entire manufacturing process. Industries will only realize the value-add of AM through the work of a well-prepared and innovative workforce who can make it happen!

Lack of Skilled Workforce Limits Ability to Take Advantage of Opportunities

A skilled workforce is an essential component to exploit AM in any manufacturing and production setting fully. It is the existence of qualified employees who understand how to apply these technologies to current processes to improve and innovate. Research in over 400 manufacturing firms by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute revealed that the number of new manufacturing jobs would grow by almost 2 million workers by 2028 (Giffi et al. 2018). Furthermore, more than half of open positions in 2028 could go unfilled due to boomer retirements, misperceptions of manufacturing work, and new skillsets required to work with advanced manufacturing technologies.

In response to the well-publicized manufacturing skills gap and workforce shortages, various education and training initiatives in AM have developed. However, most of the efforts have attracted new generations of workers through high school, two-year trade and technical school, and four-year university programs. Current manufacturing practitioners rely on vendor-specific training, professional association workshops, on-the-job experimentation and training, and certification opportunities as venues for acquiring the necessary AM skills. Unfortunately, the efforts intended to address the manufacturing skills gap appear to have fallen short. A recent update to the Deloitte skills gap study indicated that workers' shortfall for available manufacturing jobs might be even higher than the original 2 million estimated (Wellener et al. 2020). A national desire to return the manufacturing of critical goods to the US following the COVID-19 pandemic may further exacerbate the manufacturing workforce shortage in the coming years.

This book prepares current manufacturing practitioners to move from traditional manufacturing practices to incorporating AM technologies and processes in their skillsets by providing a broad foundation for further learning. Existing additive manufacturing books and much available training for practitioners focus on the technical aspects of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies and techniques without assisting the practitioner in bridging the knowledge gap. This book's focus is to...