3D Printed Customized Tooling Development Approach

Abstract: 3D printing technologies have been gaining a lot of popularity in the last fifteen years, technologies like Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing have never been as accessible as they are today, and with the introduction of the desktop 3D printer, the technology is becoming a mainstream tool for developing prototypes and direct part production from a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) file. In an industrial context, the technology is utilized for different purposes, among which is the development and production of customized and task-specific tools. The proposed work in this thesis is an approach to simplify and streamline the development process of customized production tooling and workstation. The approach was used to identify problems and improvement opportunities at a production facility that delivered IT products. Furthermore, the Technical framework included in the proposed approach provided a guiding path to follow for the prototype development of tools to address identified problems. Developed tools and proposed solutions positively affected the production line work procedure and were accepted and adopted. While other solutions required further exploration and iterative cycles as some reluctance was experienced hence it implied changes in the workflow and daily routines.