How additive manufacturing enables more sustainable end-user maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) strategies

This paper projects how Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) strategies can be optimized to the specific needs of end-users using Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. AM can significantly reduce the design and production times for customized parts. This leads to key advantages for MRO strategies from the end-user perspective, as well as environmental and cost benefits. By enabling end-users to quickly adapt and manufacture spare parts themselves, the dependence on service providers, and parts and product manufacturers is disrupted. Therefore, end-users can better capitalize on their operational knowledge and experience. For MRO strategies, one standard process flow and four end-user optimized process flows are presented. All process flows are illustrated through an industrial case study example. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of the 13th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing.