Production planning for mass customization in additive manufacturing: Build orientation determination, 2D packing and scheduling

The efficient production planning of Additively Manufactured (AM) parts is a key point for industry-scale adoption of AM. This study develops an AM-based production plan for the case of manufacturing a significant number of parts with different shapes and sizes by multiple machines with the ultimate purpose of reducing the cycle time. The proposed AM-based production planning includes three main steps: (1) determination of build orientation; (2) 2D packing of parts within the limited workspace of AM machines; and (3) scheduling parts on multiple AM machines. For making decision about build orientation, two main policies are considered: (1) laying policy in which the focus is on reducing the height of parts; and (2) standing policy which aims at minimizing the projection area on the tray to reduce the number of jobs. A heuristic algorithm is suggested to solve 2D packing and scheduling problems. A numerical example is conducted to identify which policy is more preferred in terms of cycle time. As a result, the standing policy is more preferred than the laying policy as the number of parts increases. In the case of testing 3,000 parts, the cycle time of standing policy is about 6% shorter than laying policy.