{"id":3236,"date":"2020-03-02T16:37:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:06:27","slug":"challenges-to-industrializing-additive-manufacturing-high-failure-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/challenges-to-industrializing-additive-manufacturing-high-failure-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Additive manufacturing failures (Part 1) \u2013 challenges to industrializing additive manufacturing and the high failure rate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an industry continuously experiencing change, production is witnessing modern advancements via additive manufacturing<\/a> (AM). AM makes it possible to print complex objects via a CAD model, created layer-by-layer, using various types of materials with high precision and repeatable quality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ashley
Ashley Eckhoff, Marketing Manager for Siemens Manufacturing Engineering group, concentrating on Additive Manufacturing.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Simulation and 3D\nmodeling allow for advanced complexity of design and high quality, ultimately\nresulting in fewer distortions and errors. While there are numerous examples of\nadditive manufacturing being used in the prototype stage of a product, the goal\nis to propel AM into the industrial production stages. However, to get there,\nthe industry needs to overcome crucial challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this series, we address the key challenges the industry must overcome to industrializing additive manufacturing. Our focus begins with the failure rate.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem: high failure rates, multiple printing jobs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Industrializing a manufacturing method means the ability to produce thousands of parts quickly and at high quality.  Additive manufacturing presents an issue in this regard because it usually requires numerous iterations to achieve a quality output for final production parts. Therefore, companies are printing multiple versions of parts, instead of one, to obtain acceptable results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This repeated\nprinting, due to a high failure rate, translates to increased cost. Perfecting\na part is a labor-intensive process, with companies printing multiple versions,\nresulting in waste of materials and time for each iteration. This scenario is a\nsignificant inhibitor to adopting additive manufacturing technologies in an\nindustrial setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"additive<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Predicting 3D printing problems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Simulating\ndesigns and the print process is one way to anticipate issues and correct the\ndesign or print job file before the part is sent to the 3D printer. However, even\nafter simulation, unpredictable effects can still occur during the printing process.\nTo further avoid wasting time and materials, companies also need a monitoring\ntool that can assess the build quality of the part or product during printing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether a part\u2019s\nstructural integrity has been compromised in the print process is often not\nrealized until after the failure occurs. A part\u2019s durability reveals itself\nover time. However, companies can\u2019t afford to risk an additively manufactured\npart failing prematurely. Many vital factors assist in defining the durability\nand fatigue properties of a part, including surface roughness, porosity and\nmaterials. Engineers need the ability to evaluate where a part might fail and to\nmake necessary alterations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additive manufacturing \u2013 needing solutions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A high failure\nrate in 3D printing equates to increasing time, materials and costs. There is\nno overstating the benefits of addressing these challenges, as reduction in the\nfailure rate is becoming a necessity to compete in the additive manufacturing\nspace. However, achieving a high-profit margin from additive manufacturing\nrequires quality first-article printing without suffering repeatable trial and\nerror scenarios. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reducing the\nprinting failure rate on a significant level requires knowledge, and companies\nare moving up the learning curve through diverse paths. The main benefit of\nadopting software for aiding in first-time-right printing is obtaining a\nsignificant decrease in test print failures and the iterations necessary to\nachieve a quality output without the lengthy process of knowledge acquisition\nto achieving this goal.  We will talk\nmore about this in part two of this blog series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scaling an\noperation is another barrier to additive manufacturing adoption in an\nindustrial fashion.  Companies are\nlooking to use additive manufacturing in a sustainable way, with the assurance\nthat their target quantity of parts will reproduce accurately, economically and\nwithin a specified timeframe. However, it is often unclear at the outset what\nkind of investment in AM hardware is necessary to achieve their goals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that we have\nexplored the barriers to industrializing additive manufacturing, we can begin\nto explore the solutions to these issues. \nThis will be the focus of part two of this blog series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concludes part one in a series on the challenges to industrializing additive manufacturing<\/a><\/strong>. We will continue discussing how to overcome the obstacles to AM printing failures, achieving first-time-right printing and sustainability for where today meets tomorrow in part two.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Additive manufacturing failures (Part 2)<\/a>
– Press Release \u2013 Siemens expands additive manufacturing portfolio through acquisition of Atlas 3D<\/a>
– Additive manufacturing overview<\/a>

<\/em>About the author:
Ashley Eckhoff<\/strong>\u00a0has a background in engineering and has been with Siemens for over 20 years in various capacities. He has spent the past few years deep-diving into additive manufacturing in both product design and marketing roles.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Addressing the challenges to industrializing additive manufacturing – high failure rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28801,"featured_media":3239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2020\/03\/industrial-scale-am.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3681,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/3681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}