Capacity planning in additive manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a field on the rise with a quick evolution on market and on machines. If AM hold these promises, firms which take the risk today to invest will be recognized. The decision-maker must dispose of a methodology to define the optimal design strategy under uncertainty which considers the risk taken by the decision-maker and his confidence on the suppliers and on the future. This problem matches a capacity planning problem with uncertainties on demand, on resource development, on cost evolution and on technologic evolution. In this article, we propose, in a first approach, to solve a deterministic problem of capacity planning. First, we formalize a mixed integer program. The chosen objective function is the maximization of the net profit. A case of study is presented and solved thanks to a solver.