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Revolution, not evolution: General Motors on building an AM culture and the AM Dream Machine For Additive Manufacturing to succeed in the volume production of components for the mainstream automotive industry, it will not only require the creation of an effective AM culture within automotive producers, but also a radical re-evaluation of what different industries need from AM machine manufacturers. Jeff Kerns visited GM’s Additive Industrialization Center (AIC), in Warren, Michigan, USA, for Metal AM magazine and spoke at length with the centre’s team about its role in the exploration of AM for automotive, and how new machine designs will increase AM’s success in the automotive industry.
Additive Manufacturing continues to grow in a wide range of markets. The hype of the past is fading, as successful applications in the aerospace and medical industries prove the value and staying power of what is a relatively new collection of diverse advanced manufacturing processes – all of which share the common principle of creating components by adding material, in a layerwise process, exactly where it is needed, rather than subtracting it. That Additive Manufacturing has flourished in aerospace and medical is thanks to some basic engineering economics: higher value parts, lower production volumes, the opportunity for part reduction/consolidation, and the potential for customisation. Industries based on higher volumes and lower cost, such as the massmarket automotive industry, make the economics of AM adoption more challenging. Here, we explore how one automotive producer is leveraging the opportunities presented by Additive Manufacturing, with some major, inevitable differences to the path taken by the aerospace and medical sectors.
Vol. 8 No. 3 © 2022 Inovar Communications Ltd
The seed for this article was planted by invitation from General Motors for Metal AM magazine to visit its Additive Industrialization Center (AIC), based out of its Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, USA. Opened in 2020, the 1,300 m 2 facility is a significant statement of
intent by GM that, at the same time, builds on past efforts. At the time of the centre’s opening, it was stated that Additive Manufacturing would be a fundamental pillar of GM’s transformation into a more agile, innovative company, bringing speed, flexibility and cost reductions. This
Fig. 1 A Cadillac Celestiq show car. The Celestiq, coming soon, will feature more than 100 polymer and metal AM parts – the most in any GM production vehicle to date, with GM’s Additive Industrialization Center at the heart of developments (Courtesy General Motors / Cadillac)
Metal Additive Manufacturing | Autumn 2022
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AM at General Motors
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