Future-oriented Research Strategies for Additive Manufacturing
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Gausemeier
Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Stefan Peter
Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Marina Wall
Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn
Abstract
Enabling “Freedom of Design”, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential to revolutionize product
development and production processes in the future. However, to advance the technology and to increase
its market penetration, it is necessary to create a broad awareness of its fascinating capabilities among
potential users. Reciprocally, technology suppliers need tangible feedback with regard to future market
requirements to focus their research. The process of aligning the technological development with future
market requirements is exactly the process to perform the transition of AM from an emerging to a
production-rugged technology. According to our experience, this process requires for a strategic
perspective in terms of an anticipation of the future technology performance and corresponding
markets/applications. This is the starting point of the project “Research Strategies for Additive
Manufacturing Technologies”, conducted by the Heinz Nixdorf Institute and the Direct Manufacturing
Research Center. The goal is to develop promising research strategies to effectively enable AMtechnologies for the production of end-use parts – the so called Direct Manufacturing. Firstly, the current
and future business of AM were analysed and anticipated, respectively. This provides contemporary
applications of the technology, and AM-technology providers get an idea of how the areas of application for
their products may look like in the future. By utilizing the market of tomorrow, promising ideas for potential
applications were developed. These in turn automatically set technological and market requirements that
were validated in expert surveys. As a result, innovation roadmaps were created, indicating when the
developed applications can be manufactured, as technological requirements will be fulfilled. The
requirements basically represent research fields that need to be explored to advance the technology in
accordance to the market requirements. To deduce the research demand, the research activity and intensity
of selected AM-institutes in the identified research fields were determined as part of a survey. Furthermore,
the research fields’ future relevance was validated in a survey. Based on this, the research fields that are
of future importance and are barely developed at the same time – the so called “White Spots” – were
revealed. Merging all results, promising research strategies for AM are being developed. In this paper, this
procedure is drawn on the example of the aerospace industry, covering, inter alia, the following aspects:
future aerospace applications of AM, the required technological advancements, the Additive Manufacturing
Research Map, and the “White Spots” for future research strategies (fig. 1).
The Business of Additive Manufacturing
Over the last decade, Additive Manufacturing technologies (AM) have been gaining in importance, due to
their possibilities in design and its potential to revolutionize manufacturing processes. Thereby AM is
advancing from Rapid Prototyping towards small series production – so called Direct Manufacturing. The
analysis of the “Business of Today” indicates that AM is progressively opening up new opportunities in
many instances. Various industries are seeking for ways how to capitalize on the benefits AM provides,
such as the freedom of design; new industries are becoming aware of these benefits. In particular the
aerospace industry, which produces geometrically complex high-tech parts in small lot sizes, can benefit
from AM’s flexibility. Therefore, already today the aerospace industry is in the vanguard of the industrial
application of AM. But AM is also widely spread within the medical sector, including dental applications,
prostheses, implants etc. The technologies are also being applied within the capital goods industry, e.g. in
the armament, automotive and electronics industry as well as in the tool- and mold-making industry. Even
the consumer goods industry, e.g. the sports, textile, furniture, toys and the jewelry industry are becoming
aware of AM’s great advantages for their business. AM in means of DM is not prevalent yet, experts
however underscore its huge potential [Woh11], [BLR09], [GEK+11].
Figure 1: Structure of the project “Research Strategies for Additive Manufacturing Technologies”
Based on the analysis, the aerospace, automotive and electronics industry were outlined as particularly
auspicious for the “Business of Tomorrow” of AM. To gain a sound overview of tomorrow’s requirements,
a visionary insight into the future is necessary. It enables the early identification of tomorrow’s success
potentials and the timely exploitation of these potentials. An appropriate tool for a systematic foresight and
the description of future success potentials is the Scenario-Technique [GPW09]. The future of AM is drawn
by scenarios developed for the three industries mentioned above and by scenarios for the global
environment, comprising statements on future developments of politics, economy, society and environment.
Scenarios are possible situations in the future, based on a complex network of influence factors from the
fields: market, branch technology, regulations and suppliers. For each factor possible future developments
– the so called projections are developed. In the scenario development, the projections are combined to
conclusive future scenarios. Therefore, each projection pair has to be reviewed with regard to their
consistency. For instance, “Customization of Aircrafts” and “Part Design” are two key factors used for the
description of the future aircraft production; conceivable projections are “Each Aircraft is Individual” and
“Functionally-Driven Design is the Key to Success”; these two projections strongly favor each other; they
are likely to occur together in one scenario. The projections “Each Aircraft is Individual” and “ProductionTechnology-Driven Design”, however, are mutually exclusive and cannot occur together in a credible
scenario. The most probable scenario for the aerospace industry with the highest effect on the aircraft
production describes a future, where the aircraft production is characterized by individual customization of
aircraft which fosters the application of AM-technologies. Due to the successful part implementation,
additively manufactured parts start to be associated with high performance and high quality. To be
successful in this future, it will be necessary to build up general ground rules for the design of secondary
aircraft structures, systems etc. for AM-technologies and to flow them down to suppliers [GEK+11].
Strategic Planning – Product Discovery and Technology Planning
The mentioned scenarios were used as an impulse to develop ideas for future applications of DM. All in all,
120 ideas were developed and clustered to 27 innovation fields which were assessed regarding their
chances and risks for the application of DM. For the aerospace industry, Morphing Structures and
Multifunctional Structures have been identified as the most auspicious innovation fields:
•
Morphing Structures describe applications which are designed as one part that is adaptable in its
shape in response to the operational environment. Instead of changing the position of a static part
by using actuators, the part itself can take continuous configurations of shape to enable specific
functions/properties (see figure 2).
•
Multifunctional Structures comprise ideas for functionally upgraded parts. Upgraded functionality
can be realized by integrating acoustic and thermal insulation into aircraft parts or by embedding
entire sensor/actuator systems, including electronic wiring and connectors into a part.
Figure 2: Exemplary application idea from the innovation field Morphing Structures: Morphing Wing
To enable AM-technologies for DM of the identified future applications, it is necessary to align the
technology development with current and future requirements the applications impose. This supports the
AM-industry to effectively advance AM-technologies into dependable DM-technologies. Therefore, the
developed innovation fields are analyzed to deduce requirements on DM. High process stability,
certification, design rules and online-control processes are basic requirements across the most innovation
fields, just to name a few [GEK+12].
Future Requirements on Direct Manufacturing
The identified requirements were validated in an expert survey in order to identify the most important
requirements as well as the performance of AM-technologies concerning these requirements. As
exemplarily indicated for powder bed fusion metal technologies in figure 3, the overall assessment shows
that today the significance of the requirements (y-Axis) largely correlates with the technology’s degree of
performance (x-Axis). The following requirements are assessed to be highly significant (y-Axis) for the
penetration of AM in future: high process stability, a database containing properties of AM-materials, online quality control processes, continuous certification, and provision of design rules.
However, as the vast majority of the requirements will gain in significance in the future, they are likely to
turn into critical requirements if no technological advances will be achieved. Some requirements, such as
build-up rates > 100 cm³/h, are already considered as almost critical today. Therefore for instance, research
that contributes to the production speed could promote AM-technologies in future. The amount of research
that has to be conducted to meet a requirement sufficiently strongly depends on the individual technology.
For example, an adequate availability of materials with self-healing properties requires much more effort in
development than increasing process stability to a sufficient level [GEK+12].
Figure 3: Extract from significance-performance portfolio for Powder Bed Fusion Metal Technologies
Innovation Roadmapping of Required Advancements
Based on these results, a second expert survey was conducted. The main purpose of the survey was the
get a sound overview on the point in time when – from AM-experts’ point of view – the selected requirements
will be fulfilled by selected AM-technologies. This allows the creation of innovation roadmaps, indicating
when the identified requirements will be fulfilled. Figure 4 shows an excerpt of the innovation roadmap for
powder bed fusion metal technologies. At a first glance, the overall assessment shows that advancements
on fulfilling the technology-specific requirements are expected to require higher effort than the fulfillment of
the material-specific and general requirements. For instance, a database containing material properties
and design rules are assessed to be available until 2016. In contrast, AM-machines with a larger build
chamber volume and higher build-up rates are expected to become available at earliest in 2025.
Figure 4: Extract from innovation roadmap for Powder Bed Fusion Metal Technologies
Additive Manufacturing Research Landscape
To advance AM-technologies, research projects with maximum benefits for potential AM-users need to be
pursued. This requires consistent and demand-oriented research strategies. The research demand
required for the realization of the selected applications can be deduced directly by contrasting the
applications, specifically the included technological and market requirements, and the technology’s current
performance. The mentioned requirements represent research fields and sub-topics that need to be
investigated in order to realize the identified applications. To determine the research demand, the current
research activities and intensity – the state-of-the-art research landscape – need to be taken into account.
As part of a survey, the research activity and intensity of selected AM-institutes in the identified research
fields/sub-topics were determined. Based on these findings, an Additive Manufacturing Research Map was
developed, see figure 5 [GPW13]. The different colors in the Research Map indicate which research
fields/sub-topics are being intensively investigated (yellow color) and which are hardly examined (blue
color). For instance, just a few institutes focus on cross-technology research fields, e.g. the development
of design rules and standards; the research intensity is medium. Other research fields, e.g. material
research, are intensively investigated [GPW13]. Thereby, the research landscape reveals the strengths
and weaknesses of the analyzed research institutes, concurrently showing up research fields that are hardly
addressed in the research landscape.
Figure 5: Research Map: The colored fields indicate the research intensity in different research fields (column) for
selected research institutes/technologies (rows) [GEK13]
From “White Spots” and Success Factors to Research Strategies
All pervious results are merged to develop research strategies. Therefore we are using the method
VITORSTRA®. VITOSTRA® is a systematic method for the development of consistent, success promising
strategy options based on strategic levers, following the same procedure as used in the ScenarioTechnique [GPW09]. For the identification of strategic levers, the results from the technology and market
strands, i.e. the technological requirements, the branch scenarios as well as the Research Map are used.
We firstly determine technological strategic levers, meaning the sub-topics for the future technology
development. Therefore, by contrasting the relevance of sub-topics and the performance of the technology,
those research fields that are highly relevant for a broad penetration of AM, but insufficiently addressed in
current research projects – so called “White spots”. Using these two criteria, the topics are positioned in a
relevance-performance portfolio, as shown in figure 6. In this portfolio, the ordinate intercept shows the
relevance of the topics; the abscissa indicates the technology’s degree of performance in these topics; in
addition, the research intensity is indicated by the diameter of the bubbles. Also, reverting to the market
requirements and checking for potential synergy-effects between the most promising applications allows
identifying critical topics (technological advancements) with a notably higher potential: the ability to serve
multiple markets at the same time automatically increases the potential of a particular technological
advancement. That counts for instance for the sub-topics “process automatization” and “design rules”.
These were determined as technological levers. From this portfolio, additionally the required R&D effort
can be approximated by the horizontal distance between its position and the left delimiting line of the
balanced area. Sup-topics, such as “new materials”, are critical for the future penetration of AM as well.
Here however, the research intensity is high [GPW13].
On the basis of these findings, success factors for research strategies, e.g. the integration of companies
along the value chain and the interconnection within the research landscape were deduced. These success
factors basically represent organizational strategic levers and are combined to consistent strategy options.
For instance, an institute can position itself as an institute providing problem-solving services or as a basic
scientist providing academic education in AM. Strategic levers can be also deduced from the branch
scenarios. For instance, the key factor “Part Design” is nowadays characterized by “Production-
Technology-Driven Design”. The selected branch scenario for the aircraft production includes the projection
“Functionally-Driven-Design is the Key to Success”. Thus, providing education regarding the application of
AM-technologies, enabling engineers for functional way of thinking in the development processes of aircraft
parts, can be deduced as a crucial, organization-oriented lever. The availability of supportive CAD software
tools, assisting engineers in designing function-driven parts, is a technological lever to be addressed in a
research strategy. In addition for the development of standards, the integration of companies along the
value chain and the interconnection in the research landscape were deduced as organizational levers
decisive for future strategies. The sum of all strategic levers, that are systematically deduced from the
technology and market stand and continuously aligned to each other, leads to consistent and futureoriented research strategies.
Figure 6: Determination of required R&D by contrasting relevance, performance and research intensity of sub-topics
for powder bed fusion metal technologies, e.g. SLM technology (excerpt)
Conclusion and Outlook
AM opens up promising perspectives for the development of the business of tomorrow and is expected to
be a disruptive technology for innovation. The presented procedure supports the identification of
technological potentials and describes how to exploit these with new products and services. Concurrently
the method shows up how to deduce success factors for future strategies and how to deduce consistent,
future-oriented research strategies. To promote a broad-scale implementation of AM, the technologies have
to be developed according to the most important requirements resulting from the success promising
applications, such as development of design rules and standards as well as investigations on process
automatization. Thus, the results gained in the project enable research institutions as well as technology
suppliers (material suppliers and machine manufacturers) to conduct demand-oriented research. The
presented method yields extraordinary benefits for technology-oriented companies as well: the method
represents a freely scalable basis. It can thus be streamlined in accordance with the purposes of a
company, enabling the company to transfer technological abilities into innovations by synchronizing the
technology development (Technology Push) with the market perspective (Market Pull).
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