Deployment of the Analytic Hierarchical Process for Comparative Analysis of Additive Manufacturing Technologies in the Manufacture of Injection Moulds

Abstract

he current environment of changing market trends drives the manufacturing industry to strive for efficient manufacturing technologies. A mould manufacturer was using traditional manufacturing approaches to fabricate injection moulds. The traditional approach compromised the competitiveness of the organisation, resulting in a lower production rate and high operational costs owing to lengthy changeover times. Given several alternatives, the aim of this study was to determine the best suitable additive manufacturing technology for the manufacture of moulds. The analytic hierarchical process was deployed as the method to compare and select the best 3D printing technology from among recent additive manufacturing (AM) technologies that would meet surface finish, dimensional accuracy, cost, and manufacturing lead time requirements. Four AM options were multilevel concurrent printing, MELD technology, a Metal Jet 3D printer, and VELO3D. The final results indicated that the VELO3D was better than the other additive manufacturing technologies for the manufacture of moulds. Keywords Analytic hierarchical process; Additive manufacturing; Injection moulding

A Hierarchical Axiomatic Evaluation of Additive Manufacturing Equipment and the 3D Printing Process Based on Sustainability and Human Factors

“…The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) has been utilized in several studies to solve challenges associated with the selection of AM equipment [32][33][34][35]. However, while AHP has significance in this context, it may not provide a complete assessment of the AM equipment selection process.…”