Prospects of Additive Manufacturing Technology in Mass Customization of Automotive Parts: A Case Study

Additive manufacturing/3D printing is a revolutionary technology that uses layers of material to create objects from 3D digital data for various applications. Now, it also opens the doors to cost-effective mass customization. With near-scale production efficiency, mass customization attempts to produce products and services that best fit individual consumers’ needs. In this pursuance, the present work aims to investigate the prospects of additive manufacturing in mass customization for the automotive industry. A case study of automotive parts, i.e. mirror panel of bikes such as racing bikes, bobber bikes and new designs and the results, is compared with customized designed components. A significant saving of material and manufacturing time with improved strength has resulted in corresponding to the optimized set of parameters. The material weight of the new design is approximately 32.30% and 21.52% lower than the racing bike and bobber bike, respectively. The customized model developed in this paper is fixed from both ends replacing the traditional ball joint and installing a vibrating insulator at the joint in the handle for less image distortion. The customized model developed will be helpful for efficient & sustainable product design and manufacturing.