Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Austin Collins | 210610-N-KY668-1053 NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. (June 10, 2021) Engineman 1st Class...... read more read more
Additive Manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing, is becoming a popular solution in industrial settings. But when it comes to military application, there was no business model to help determine return on investment until the Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support (NAVSUP WSS) Navy Price Fighters (NPF) developed the Additive Manufacturing Cost and Time (AMCAT) decision tool.
The NPF were tasked in October 2016 to develop a means to determine a business case for Additive Manufacturing. They reviewed numerous articles, industry publications, and Department of Defense guidance regarding AM and discovered there wasn’t a consistent path for determining a business case for AM.
“Even though AM has been around for a while, it’s still relatively new for the Department of Defense and the Navy,” said William Peterson, NAVSUP WSS NPF Operations Research Analyst and AMCAT Team Lead. “There’s a lot of information out there on where additive manufacturing can best be used and what the benefits are, but there’s no agreement on what metrics need to be collected to determine a business case or the cost of additive manufacturing.”
The NPF quickly realized in order to determine a viable business case they had to collect data to help calculate both AM cost and time, as well as, determine viable results for an AM business case.
“We needed to decide as a group what data we needed to collect in order to come up with additive manufacturing cost,” said Peterson. “The ultimate goal of the tool is to determine whether it’s more cost effective to use additive manufacturing or to use established supply systems.”
The NPFs developed the AMCAT web-based tool to provide the information necessary to make an informed value decision. The tool is designed around standard engineering processes accomplished by DoD AM production sites across the United States. AMCAT is a one-of-a-kind analytics tool standardizing the collection of AM data, enabling metric reporting and provides a comparison between AM and traditional supply chain solutions.
“Currently NAVAIR and NAVSEA are our biggest proponents and have started using the web-based AMCAT, and we continue to gather data,” said Peterson.
While other entities within the DoD are working on similar solutions, the NPFs believe the AMCAT should be accepted as the standard for cost and time modeling as a way to determine return on investment.
“Our tool captures everything and uses real data for things like non-recurring engineering (labor hours and equipment purchases), shipping, contracting and transportation costs,” said Peterson. “The intention is to capture all of the costs of AM. Our tool is the only one capturing all that data.”
As the AMCAT gathers more data, the tool will provide a more accurate business case for the use of additive manufacturing. If the NPFs have their way, the AMCAT will play an integral role in determining the viability of 3D printing decisions across the DoD.
To read more about the AMCAT and the PhD behind the development of the equations in the model please see: NAVSUP WSS Navy Price Fighters Put 3D Printing Costs On the Ropes > United States Navy > News-Stories and/or video: DVIDS - Video - NAVSUP WSS Navy Price Fighters have 3D printing costs on the ropes (dvidshub.net).
NAVSUP WSS is one of 11 commands under Commander, NAVSUP. Headquartered in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, NAVSUP employs a diverse, worldwide workforce of more than 22,500 military and civilian personnel. NAVSUP and the Navy Supply Corps conduct and enable supply chain, acquisition, operational logistics and sailor and family care activities with our mission partners to generate readiness and sustain naval forces worldwide to prevent and decisively win wars. Learn more at www.navsup.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/navsupwss, and https://twitter.com/navsupsyscom.
| Date Taken: | 09.20.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2022 09:18 |
| Story ID: | 429681 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 187 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Navy Price Fighters develop additive manufacturing cost, time model, by Brian Jones, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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