Speaker
Description
The integration of additive manufacturing into the logistics processes of the armed forces has been established successfully at various levels in various nations. Especially the spare parts supply chain of armed forces during military missions can benefit from the advantages of additive manufacturing, particularly by reduced lead times, smaller spare parts inventories as well as enhanced flexibility.
The FORTE project IAMLOG investigates the integration of Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) into the existing logistics processes of the Austrian Armed Forces. This paper is reporting about a workflow incorporating several activities related to the engineering and additive manufacturing workflow for spare the production of parts needed to sustain military missions under restricted supply chain opportunities. The workflow starts with the documentation of the damaged parts. Assuming the near-term unavailability of an equivalent spar part, information about the necessary part details (geometry, material, functional features) are provided to is provided to remote engineers in some distance of the mission area. These experts are evaluating the manufacturing and logistics opportunities. By applying criteria derived from specific operational scenarios - including urgency of supply, material availability & manufacturing capacity at stationary as well as at forward-deployed factory units and related logistic efforts - the most appropriate solution is selected. Immediately afterwards, AM experts start to engineer the production and transfer the production planning data to the production facility.
A specific example is used to practically investigate the workflow itself and compare the spare parts demonstrators generated by metal additive manufacturing (wire-arc additive manufacturing, laser powder bed fusion) as well as polymer FDM with respect to spent resources, functional properties and endurance expectations.
| Speaker Country | Austria |
|---|---|
| Would you like to publish your paper in the special issue of BHM "Berg- und Hüttenmännische Monatshefte" | Yes |