Application of a proposed additive manufacturing performance measurement system in a Brazilian industry

Additive manufacturing as a new manufacturing process contributes to production systems progress, decreasing the lead time between product requests and customer delivery. The article presents a measurement system to verify the additive manufacturing performance in a Brazilian metal-mechanical industry, stratified methodologically in a top-down hierarchical decision-making structure with critical success factors and key performance indicators based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process to obtain the performance index. The performance measurement system was applied in a multinational metal-mechanical manufacturer of motorized tools from Brazil. The results show a neutral performance for the tooling sector, emphasizing key performance indicators related to new product research and development, importation cost rate, and traditional manufacturing processes reduction. Also, according to the experts consulted, the main factors related to additive manufacturing in developing countries' production chains are new product development, workforce training, and export activity.