Pursuing successful Rapid Manufacturing in a standards-less industry:: a best practice approach

The aim of this paper is the identification of common good practices for Rapid Manufacturing (RM), regarding the present RM perception and usual applied processes. A survey was applied to a number of services, bureaus and engineering centres in Northern Spain, using a target population. Applied questions ranging from general RM perceptions to specific criteria are used towards production parameters like layer thicknesses, laser power, quality assurance, among others. A special emphasis is made on cost parameters since it is recognized that the final decision of producing single products or small series, by any of the RM technologies available, actually depends on final production costs.