Decision Support System for a Metal Additive Manufacturing Process Chain Design for the Automotive Industry

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is becoming increasingly important in various industries, particularly due to its freedom of design, functional integration and faster product development cycles. In many applications, additively manufactured components cannot be used directly after the printing process, but require subsequent process steps such as heat and surface treatment. A large number of process alternatives are available both for the execution of the printing process and for the subsequent steps. Hence, there are numerous possible combinations for the design of the entire production process chain.