An Additive Manufacturing resource process model for product family design

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has a profound impact on the mass customization of consumer products. To take advantage of this new manufacturing resource we need to incorporate AM into existing design methodologies. In this paper, we address this need by proposing an AM resource process model for product family design. The proposed model captures the ability of AM to produce arbitrary complex structures with virtually no tooling effort and it makes these powerful properties available to practitioners working in the field of product family design. The proposed resource model is based on topology optimization and Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This model produces performance surfaces that can be used to select optimal components for product family design. These optimal components satisfy the product family requirements and address the need for profitability and sustainability.