Additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly being applied in the field of maintenance repair and operation in many industries. The use of AM has been demonstrated to increase the reparability of production equipment. However, there is no research investigating whether AM has a bearing on the decision to repair or replace (R/R) production equipment. As AM is adopted it may become more complex for a company to determine the better option between repairing or acquiring new production equipment.
The study has reviewed the literature about R/R decision of production equipment to identify the decision-making factors. A conceptual model was created to be used during data gathering. Interviews have been conducted in two phases. The first phase interviewed fifteen managers with extensive experience in making R/R decision in automotive, electronics and food industries in Thailand. The managers validated the model, added sub-factors, and ranked the decision factors in terms of importance.
The second phase was interviews with fifteen AM specialists, manufacturers, and suppliers. The interviewees provided an assessment of AM on each of the R/R decision factors.
The AM criticality of each decision factor is quantified as the product of its importance and how significantly it is impacted by AM. The higher a factor’s criticality, the more important it is to take AM into account when making decision. The results indicate that capital budgeting, cost, and corporate business strategy are the highest AM critical factors. The lowest AM critical factors are social and political issues.
The contributions from the study are (1) a validated conceptual model of factors in the replace or repair decision, (2) the assessment of the impact of AM on the factors, and (3) the ranking of factors in terms of AM criticality.
Keywords: Additive Manufacturing, Production Equipment Repair/Replacement, Decision Making