Additive manufacturing vs conventional machining process for complex geometry parts

Conventional machining process like milling, drilling, rolling, forming and so on, are still the most common go-to manufacturing operations for medium to large volume production. Additive manufacturing (AM) has been disrupting the manufacturing environment in the past decade with new possibilities for customised small volume production. Optimised manufacturing, for example, is very difficult to achieve with conventional machining processes, whereas with the help of additive manufacturing, this is easy with relatively fewer tooling changes, and much less time involved with the manufacturing operation.

Additive manufacturing comes with its own set of challenges with the kind of manufacturing technology used, namely vat polymerization, powder bed fusion, material extrusion, material jetting, binder jetting, direct energy deposition or sheet lamination. With post-processing improvements in additive manufacturing, there have been significant leaps in manufacturing capabilities, turning it from a prototyping methodology to finished-product method.