Reasons Behind Selecting a Manufacturing Process: A Semi-structured Interview Study

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is still considered an emerging technology, and it has proven suitable for the fabrication of complex geometries. Selecting AM to fabricate a part involves investigating the economic, environmental, and mechanical aspects of production processes. However, the role of part geometry is often neglected. Even if it is established that AM can be used to manufacture parts with complex shapes, such AM-oriented complexity has not been formally defined. Hence, this paper investigates the role of part geometry in manufacturing and the reasons behind selecting a manufacturing process. A semi-structured interview study was conducted with ten manufacturing experts. Then, the interview data was evaluated using Latent Semantic Analysis. Six questions were used in the analysis to address the objectives of the paper. Most of the responders tended to describe the manufacturing processes instead of describing the presented geometry when directly asked. The interview revealed that experts consider the material, use, geometry, part size, batch number, machine availability, mechanical properties, production cost, and part quality as fundamental criteria to select a manufacturing process. Based on the interview results, the part geometry remains of secondary importance unless the design includes topology optimization, lattice structures, or organic shapes.