Design for Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) applied in the manufacture of Master Sample for the automotive industry

In order to supply auto parts to the automotive industry the companies must meet all Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) requirements. One of the biggest difficulties in obtaining the approval of the APQP is in the preparation of the “Master Sample,” which will be used for the validation of jigs, production, and dimensional control devices. The procedures for manufacturing Master Samples through conventional manufacturing processes are outdated, slow, and cost-effective, which goes against the concepts of Industry 4.0. Therefore, this work aims to propose a procedure for Design for Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) that analyzes the feasibility and systematizes the manufacture of Master Sample through Additive Manufacturing (AM). Two model parts were submitted to the procedure, manufactured by AM and validated as Master Samples. In this work, a comparative analysis between the parts produced conventionally and those produced by AM showed that the time and costs in order to obtain the Master Samples using the proposed procedure was significantly shorter. The reduction in time to obtain Master Samples speeds up the evaluation and validation of control devices from suppliers, can speed up the acquisition of APQP documentation and reduce the time in the development of the serial parts by manufacturing process. Furthermore, the use of the proposed DFAM procedure is innovative in the context of the automotive industry, as it suggests a change in the production concept and inserts AM as another option in the manufacturing process and not just as a rapid prototyping tool.