Deloitte Supplement - January 6, 2020 - D21

Digitizing the end-to-end automotive value chain

footprint on-site in all our manufacturing locations
would help in this regard, there are cases where it

From an overall standpoint, industry

doesn't always provide an optimal solution.

estimates suggest there are
approximately US$165 billion of tooling

Sometimes we need more than just the machine

assets in North America alone dedicated

that makes the part, as some components also

to service part production. This puts a

require testing and analysis equipment. For this

significant burden on the supply base for

reason, we think the best approach is to embark on

tooling maintenance and introduces an

the AM journey with our suppliers, encouraging

inherent risk of production downtime as

them to evolve with this new technology because of

the knowledge required to run these

its potential transformative benefits for the

machines often resides in relatively few

entire ecosystem.

resources. Overall, converting from
traditional production processes to

Having said that, one of the biggest practical

additive manufacturing could free up a

challenges to implementing AM across multiple

significant amount of capacity in the

stakeholders in a manufacturing value chain is

supply base.

cybersecurity. The central question is: How do we

-

ensure that both our physical manufacturing
processes and underlying intellectual property assets

Christopher Ongena,
Additive Manufacturing
practice leader, Deloitte LLP

remain secure when a breach on either front could
result in catastrophic consequences?
past two years, they've been focused on producing

Other AM benefits can occur further downstream in
the manufacturing process. For example, instead of

new, unique designs for components that are difficult

producing and warehousing large inventories of

or impossible to manufacture using traditional

service parts, AM helps us envision a warehouse of

production methods.

printers producing parts on demand. Going a step
further, we can potentially leverage our

This team is also working with software tools that

manufacturing network so that we could fully utilize

enable capabilities to support this initiative.

idle printer capacity in a given plant when printers in

Historically, designers optimized existing parts,

a different plant are oversubscribed.

resulting in derivative design options with
incremental gains in areas such as mass reduction
and/or production efficiency. Tools using topology

Driving the technology
with the right talent

optimization and generative design principles, by
contrast, can generate hundreds of different design
options in the same amount of time, with

To integrate AM into our organization, we put

performance requirements built-in upfront. This

together a team of additive design and manufacturing

provides us more confidence in our design solutions

professionals who have the technical ability of

meeting critical performance requirements, while

simulation engineers, the creativity of designers, as

dramatically increasing our ability to optimize the

well as expertise in the 3D printing process. Over the

end product.

21
Deloitte Supplement - January 6, 2020

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