A system approach for modelling additive manufacturing in defence acquisition programs

Defence Contractors and NATOMinistry of Defences (MoDs) are currently exploiting Additive Manufacturing (AM) Technology to improve availability of defence platforms and support soldiers deployed in remote Area of Operations (AO). Additive Manufacturing is considered a disruptive technology when employed in a military context to reduce the reliance on supply chains and improve the responsiveness to Operation Tempo (OT). This papers aims at presenting a novel system approach to model the end-to-end process of delivering a product printed with AM and estimate accurately the time and costs of AM. Understanding better the time and costs of AM will allow the MoDs and Defence Contractors to perform comparison with current practices and support their decision making in AM technology acquisition.