Activity-based Cost Model for Material Extrusion Processes Along the Additive Manufacturing Process Chain

The utilization of additive manufacturing (AM) has entailed numerous benefits such as shortened time-to-market, high product innovation and individualization. The application of AM has gained in significance within the automotive industry as it is transferring from a prototype technology to series applications. Besides technological barriers, an approach to estimate cost to set up a business case of an application is crucial. Material extrusion (ME) as an additive process category is theoretically capable of meeting high requirements in industry. Despite various processes belonging to ME, Fused Layer Modeling (FLM) is the only one entrenched. The establishment of pellet-based processes could overcome restrictions for ME. Although there are various cost estimations for AM, a transparent methodology to carry out a profitability analysis between ME processes is missing. In this study, a cost model for ME is developed to estimate occurring cost and cost drivers. Existing cost models are compared regarding their suitability for ME. The final cost model for ME is activity-based and measuring occurring unit cost during the process steps pre-, in- and postprocessing. The duration of cost-generating activities is considered.