Research Summaries

Back Metrics and Measurement in Additive Manufacturing Domain: Adoption and Return on Investment

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Sadagic, Amela
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary The potential that Additive Manufacturing (AM) brings to the naval domain and DoD is well recognized, and activities towards large scale adoption of this type of technology are well underway. Naval AM Implementation Plan that has been created at the beginning of 2018 details the elements of accelerated initiatives across different domains, with ultimate goal of increasing readiness (sustainment), enhancing warfighting capabilities and enabling rapid development (fielding). Measuring both adoption and return on investment will need to be integrated in those efforts as well.

We propose to engage in a series of research activities aimed at creating a comprehensive understanding about the metrics needed to (a) measure adoption of technologies associated with AM, and (b) metrics that would help articulate value added and return on investments made towards adoption and expansion of AM in Naval domain. The work on this study will include extensive data collection that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative information collected from stakeholders and adopters. The effort will also include the work on identifying the elements of AM portal – an infrastructure specifically created to house a variety of AM resources, host information about AM adopters, and provide the data about activities in AM domain. The same portal will enable measuring the adoption process, and allow collection of information about adopter-generated innovations and their projected savings. Activities will incorporate multiple visits to Naval institutions and laboratories with AM practitioners, collaboration and information exchange with stakeholders. All field visits will support comprehensive data collection, cataloging and development of metrics of project interest. Our collaboration will extend to colleagues in NAVFAC and USMC Systems Command, to ensure that leveraging of results of this project is fully achieved. A detailed final report of findings will be provided.
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Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal