Modelling of Wire Arc Additive Manufactured Product Cost

Abstract

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is a promising additive manufacturing process that offers unique opportunities in product manufacture, repair and refurbishment. Cost is an important criterion in selection of a manufacturing process. In today´s competitive manufacturing scenario, manufacturers are striving to keep costs down while maintaining the quality of their products and processes. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a cost model for calculating the costs of products manufactured using the WAAM process. An activity-based cost (ABC) model is developed to estimate the cost of WAAM products. All activities and their cost drivers involved in production of WAAM parts, from design to shipment to the customer are identified. The final product cost is expressed as the total of all individual activity costs. Using the proposed cost model, a case study comparing the product cost using WAAM and pure CNC machining approaches is also presented in this paper.