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Design Innovation With Additive Manufacturing: A Methodology

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DOI: 10.1115/DETC2019-97400

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 Proceedings of the ASME 2019
International Design Engineering Technical Conferences
and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
IDETC/CIE2019
August 18-21, 2019, Anaheim, CA, USA

DETC2019-97400

DESIGN INNOVATION WITH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: A METHODOLOGY

K. Blake Perez1, Carlye A. Lauff2, Bradley A. Camburn, Kristin L. Wood

SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC)
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION: AM AND DESIGN INNOVATION

Additive manufacturing (AM) has matured rapidly in the past
decade and has made significant progress towards a reliable and
repeatable manufacturing process. The technology opens the
doors for new types of innovation in engineering product
development. However, there exists a need for a design process
framework to efficiently and effectively explore these newly
enabled design spaces. Significant work has been done to
understand how to make existing products and components
additively manufacturable, yet there still exists an opportunity to
understand how AM can be leveraged from the very outset of the
design process. Beyond end use products, AM-enabled
opportunities include an enhanced design process using AM,
new business models enabled by AM, and the production of new
AM technologies. In this work, we propose the use, adaptation
and evolution of the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre’s
Design Innovation (DI) framework to assist organizations
effectively explore all of these AM opportunities in an efficient
and guided manner. We build on prior work that extracted and
formalized design principles for AM. This paper discusses the
creation and adaptation of the Design Innovation with Additive
Manufacturing (DIwAM) methodology, through the combination
of these principles and methods under the DI framework to better
identify and realize new innovations enabled by AM. The paper
concludes with a representative case study with industry that
employs the DIwAM framework and the outcomes of that project.
Future studies will analyze the effects that DIwAM has on
designers, projects, and solutions.
Keywords: design innovation, design theory and
methodology, additive manufacturing, design process
Additive manufacturing (AM) has and will continue to play a
large part in the future of manufacturing and production. With its
ability to create highly complex geometries from the digital
representation of a part and circumvent many of the constraints
of traditional manufacturing, AM is capable of producing
previously non-viable or impossible products. Many forward-
thinking organizations want to assess how AM technology will
impact their design processes, product offerings, and potential
new business models [1]. This motivates a need to develop a
design methodology to explore the breadth of AM innovation
opportunities beyond products. Recent research has shown that
manufacturing methods, like AM, affect the outcomes in design
[2,3], which provides a theoretical basis for integrating novel
technologies in the process explicitly – so as to leverage the
technology as needed as opposed to being subject to it in
developing products.
Previous work has identified actionable design knowledge
and principles for designing with AM [4–6], and a systematic
innovation framework that combines best practices from design
thinking, business design, systems engineering, and design
engineering [7]. There exists an opportunity to develop a design
process framework in which these AM principles, along with a
curated set of design methods, can be effectively implemented to
explore the design spaces enable by additive manufacturing.
This paper introduces the Design Innovation with Additive
Manufacturing (DIwAM) methodology, which uses the SUTD-
MIT International Design Centre’s Design Innovation (DI)
framework [7]. We curated a set of design methods that are core
to the DI process as well as a complimentary set of design
methods that are more AM-centric. The research objective for
this paper is that the use of these methods in the framework of
the DI process can help organizations understand AM, identify
AM-centric opportunity areas for design, develop an array of
creative solutions, test and finally deliver an innovative product

1
Current affiliation is with nTopology in New York, NY, USA
2
Contact author: carlye_lauff@sutd.edu.sg

1 Copyright © 2019 ASME

that truly leverages the capabilities of AM. In this paper, the
DIwAM framework is introduced and demonstrated using an
industrial case study, where the team develops a new AM process
to manufacture hybrid rocket fuel grains.
1.1 Additive Manufacturing Enabled Opportunities
AM refers generically to any layer-based manufacturing process
in which material is selectively placed or secured according to a
digital representation of an artefact [8]. Layer-by-layer, material
is fixed point-by-point, line-by-line, or by whole layers at a time.
AM is capable of producing goods from wax, gels, fibers,
polymers, ceramics, and metals. AM has also enabled highly
complex part geometries that offer significant functional
performance advantages and the consolidation of multiple
components and functions into a single part. The technology has
also contributed to new business or service models. For example,
parts can be customized to the end-user or fabricated at the point
of consumption.
The AM industry has matured in many ways in the past
decade. Notable development areas include (i) the advancement
of AM technology, (ii) the standardization of industry and
technology terminology, and (iii) the development of design
tools and software to aid in the design and production of AM
artifacts. Advancements in AM technologies have enabled the
use of new materials, consistent quality from build to build,
faster build times, the processing of multiple materials among
many others. Industry standardization has enabled more
FIGURE 1: High Level AM Innovation Areas: Products, Business Models, Design Processes, and AM Technologies
2 Copyright © 2019 ASME
consistent quality, greater efficiency, improved repeatability,
and risk mitigation [9]. These advancements have enabled the
use of AM, not just as a means of producing prototypes, but also
finished products and intermediate manufacturing goods such as
molds or fixtures.
All of these improvements have led the way for innovative
outputs that better leverage AM. From a survey of successful AM
innovations, there are four general opportunities areas that
should be considered when assessing AM as a potential avenue
for innovation. These four high level areas include (i) the
creations of new products with AM, (ii) the creation of new
business models with AM, (iii) the advancement of product
design processes with AM, and (iv) the creation of new classes
of AM technologies. These four opportunities and examples of
each category are described further in Figure 1.
This study emphasizes area (iii) “the advancement of
product design processes with AM”, which is previously
underexplored in the literature. Before discussing the DI process,
the elements of design processes are explained in order to
demonstrate why DI is an ideal process framework for this
application.
1.2 Design Innovation Elements
As both a framework and process, there are four main
constituents of design: people, principles, methods, and, process.
A process provides guidance for moving a design effort from the
initial problem understanding towards a solution. For a particular
problem, a single process is chosen and implemented. Methods
are shorter self-contained activities that help designers and teams
collect and create new information or filter and prioritize existing
information depending on the current need of the design process.
Many methods are used within a process, but the sets of methods
chosen and used may differ from project to project. Design
principles are generally more fundamental and directive than
design methods; they are packaged information on foundational
knowledge [10,11]. Design principles for AM were extracted in
prior work [5], and these actionable recommendations can
improve the likelihood of achieving the design goal. Design
principles can be relevant and apply to an entire design process,
to a phase within a process, to methods, as well as to steps within
a method. Finally, people are an essential pillar of design. People
are stakeholders of innovation as creators, producers, and users
of new solutions. The focus of this study will be integration of
design process and methods for creation of an AM specific
process. Therefore, we discuss the design processes and design
methods in more depth.
Design Processes. Design processes support the
identification and definition of high-impact opportunities for
innovation as well as generating, selecting, and developing
effective solutions for these opportunities. There are seemingly
infinite models of the ideal design process. One can refer to
Howard and co-authors’ work for a thorough summary and
comparison of different design process models [12]. Some
processes are tailored to specific industries or problem types
such as Mohringer’s approach to design for mechatronics [13],
while others attempt to remain more general, such as Pahl and
Beitz systematic engineering design process [14]. A design
process provides a series of activities (often design methods) that
guide an individual or team from the identification of key
opportunities to the realization of an innovative and validated
solution.
Design Methods. Design methods can be seen as the
building blocks of a design process. Blessing and Chakrabarti
define design methods as “sequences of activities to be followed
in order to improve particular stages of the design process” [15].
For a particular design process, decisions are made to use certain
methods over others, as some will be more contextually relevant
to the particular design problem. There are hundreds of methods
that have been studied extensively [16,17].Key aspects of a
design method include a unique value proposition and context.
For instance, brainstorming is meant to generate a large number
of ideas and is particularly useful during ideation. Idea
generation is the value proposition and the ideation phase of the
design process is the context. Methods should also advance the
overall design process and produce useful outputs that can be
leveraged in later stages more than could be done without the
method.
Integrated Design Innovation (DI) Process. Design
Innovation (DI) is a strategic design process that leverages many
methods, and principles that helps organizations and individual
generate innovative solutions [7]. It integrates concepts from
design thinking, business design, systems engineering, and
design engineering. DI provides a systematic framework but
3 Copyright © 2019 ASME
with the flexibility to accommodate many different design
opportunities types, such as designing with AM.
The framework of DI builds upon the British Design
Councils’ 4D Process consisting of Discover, Define, Develop,
and Deliver phases [18]. DI uses similar terminology, but a
different description for the phases (i) Discover, identify and
understand opportunities and needs through collaboration with
stakeholders; (ii) Define, interpret user data, and benchmarking
results, as well as to re-frame stakeholder’s needs, then map this
information into abstract representations; (iii) Develop, ideate
and model design concepts based on critical opportunities, then
down-select according to feasibility, viability, and desirability;
and (iv) Deliver, prototype and test concepts with stakeholders
exploring potential risks, developing variants and strategically
deploying the result. These phases are often taught as a
sequential process with iteration. This sequential representation
of the phases allows new designers to quickly and easily learn
what Design Innovation is and its components, but the process is
not typically so cleanly linear and sequential.
Design Innovation is an intensively iterative and sprint-
based design process that focuses on user-centeredness and close
user involvement throughout the entire process. Unlike other
design processes, user-involvement is not limited to just the early
need-finding phase, but also encouraged during ideation, concept
development, testing and refinement. DI also provides flexibility
to accommodate different types of design opportunities, and it
leverages existing design methods and principles.
2. MOTIVATION: DESIGN FOR VS. DESIGN WITH AM
There is a distinct difference between designing for additive
manufacturing and designing with AM. To date, research has
focused on designing for AM by developing effective and
efficient principles and strategies for creating components and
physical products. There is an opportunity to more broadly
define methods and principles for designing with AM throughout
the entirety of the design process. This paper is concerned with
the latter, using designing with AM as the basis for a design
innovation methodology. The following sub-sections discuss the
differences between designing for and with AM, followed in the
next section by the introduction of DIwAM methodology.
2.1 Design for AM
One of the most well-known and studied areas of design and AM
is Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM). The term DfAM
seems to first appear in work by Hu et al. in 2006 [19]. Previous
works did use the phrase, but in a more direct sense to
communicate that they designed something specific to be
additively manufactured. Hu first uses the phrase to talk more
generally about the practice of designing for additive
manufacturing and strategies to improve the practice in a way
not specific to a particular application.
DfAM is a term used to describe the detailed design of
products and components for production using additive
manufacturing. Most often, the term relates to design principles.
After Hu’s initial suggestion, the term gained significant
popularity through the work of Gibson, Rosen and Stucker [8].
When referring to DfAM, the authors suggest that “designers and
operators should consider a number of build-related factors when
considering the set-up of an AM job”. Later works have
discussed these factors as principles and their development.
The level of specificity and applicability of the principles
range. Some can be applied to all AM technologies, whereas
some maybe be specific to certain AM technologies. For
example, Figure 2a shows a set of low-level principles intended
to help a designer create an additively manufacturable artifact
[20]. In the diagram, minimum values are given to ensure the
manufacturability of different features on different AM
technologies. These are labeled, low-level because they are
specific to certain features at the technology level. Figure 2b
shows a high-level principle for AM, which suggest using the
structure to achieve the mechanical function that might
otherwise require multiple components [1,5]. Both examples
improve the chances of a successful design outcome given their
own contexts.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 2: Examples of (a) low-level AM principles [20] and
(b) high-level AM principles [1,5]
The majority of work on AM to date has focused on the later
stages of the design process—on methods and principles for after
an idea has been conceived to answer questions for how to
successfully and efficiently additively manufacture this concept.
Very little has been done to address the opportunity of
considering AM throughout the entire design process to not only
design for AM but with AM from the onset of the process. Some
authors have proposed preliminary ideas about a design process
for AM [21]. Others have proposed plans to help specific stages
of the design process with respect to AM, like the early stage
identification of parts that could be redesigned for AM [22].
2.2 Design with AM
Although the distinction may seem minor and pedantic, the term
Design with Additive Manufacturing encompasses a greater span
of opportunities which require close integration with the design
process. DfAM tends to be a very convergent process that guides
engineers and designers to refine artifacts in a way that ensures
or increases their chances of successful manufacture via additive
4 Copyright © 2019 ASME
manufacturing. Design with additive manufacturing (DwAM)
provides opportunities for divergent thought in order to help
designers and organizations consider all potential opportunities
and avenues for innovation around AM. This distinction does not
intend to devalue DfAM in anyway, but rather to build and
expand upon it. According to Pahl in Beitz, “the starting points
for new products can be new product functions; other working
principles; new embodiments; and rearrangements of an existing
or new system structure” [14]. In mapping this search strategy to
the AM domain, we discuss four key activity types of designing
with additive manufacturing: (i) improving a design innovation
process, (ii) creating new and novel artifacts, (iii) enabling new
business models, and (iv) creating new AM technologies. A
Design Innovation process, which encompasses the use of AM,
should provide for all of these key activity types.
Industrial examples of design with AM. Figure 3 displays
industry examples of outcomes when you design with AM.
Figure 3a shows how Spuni, a baby feeding spoon product,
leveraged AM to rapidly produce and test multiple variants of a
prototype. Figure 3b shows GE’s LEAP Engine fuel nozzle that
was designed to reduce the number of parts from 20 to 1, while
also improving efficiency by leveraging the geometric
complexities afforded by AM technology. Figure 3c is a clear
alignment tray produced by Align Technologies for fixing
crooked teeth that is customized to every patient and redesigned
every two weeks. Align technologies leveraged AM to design an
entirely new business model for alignment trays. Figure 3d
shows the Voxel8 printer printing an integrated circuit. This is
an example of how designing with AM in mind allowed the team
to identify a need for embedded electronics in 3D printed parts,
and then extend an AM technology’s capabilities to do so.
These examples showcase the power of designing with AM.
However, the question still remains: how do individuals or
companies identify these types of opportunities with AM from the
onset of the design process? We propose the use of Design
Innovation process interwoven with AM tools and methods as a
means to accomplish the task of innovating with AM as an
enabling technology.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
FIGURE 3: Examples of designing with AM: (a) Spuni spoons,
(b) GE’s LEAP Engine fuel nozzle, (c) Align Technologies teeth
alignment tray, (d) Printing integrated circuit with Voxel8 printer
3. METHODOLOGY: DESIGN INNOVATION WITH AM
There exists an opportunity to develop a framework for
exploring AM-enabled opportunities using the Design
Innovation Process. The design innovation process has been
similarly adapted before to accommodate other topics of interest,
such as smart energy [23]. One reason for adapting the DI
process is to bring the user closer to the design and create not just
a feasible and viable solution, but also a desirable one. This is
done with a modular and flexible design process framework that
leverages upon existing user-centric design methods and
principles. The framework is a backbone on which to compile
the most useful methods based on the project outlook, type,
opportunity, and resources. The framework of DI enables the use
of both existing and new design methods. DI allows for the use
and inclusion of all types of design methods, which allows teams
to choose methods that are particularly relevant and helpful to
their particular opportunity.
3.1 Method Curation and Modification
In the DI with AM process, there are a number of methods that
can, should, and need to be executed. Additionally, with respect
to AM, there are methods that may need to be adapted or created
to suit the goals of DI with AM. We can classify these as curated,
modified/extended, and created methods as explained here:
1. Curated DI Methods: These are standard DI methods that
are selectively included for relevance to AM. These include
methods like articulated use interviews, how might we
statement generation, and prototyping with user testing.
2. Curated DwAM Methods: These are methods already
designed for AM that are suitable for use in the DI process
and can be easily added to the database of methods.
3. Modified or Extended DI Methods: These are methods that
have been adapted or need to be adapted from existing
design methods to better suit an AM-centric process. These
include adapting existing methods like the mission model
canvas, functional modelling, TRIZ, and DfAM methods.
4. Created Methods: These are methods that are newly
developed or can be created support DIwAM. These
methods should enable the identification of AM
opportunities and development of AM solutions. The
methods could be developed using the framework of design
support generation in the Design Research Methodology
[65].
Some methods fit without modifications, some need to be
adapted, and some need to be created. Design methods that
support DI with AM need to be suited towards AM and/or the
Design Innovation Process. Characteristics of such methods
include: (i) Modularity in order to fit into a larger process which
includes clear, feasible, and useful inputs and outputs; (ii) Clear
directions regarding what inputs are needed and how the method
is to be executed; (iii) Clear context of when and why the
methods can and should be used. Those methods which deal with
AM should also incorporate AM specific innovation avenues and
expand or narrow the solution space based on what is possible
with AM technology.
Table 1 lists examples of methods for DI with AM. This
database is a work-in-progress, with more methods being added.
Column two lists typical Design Innovation methods [7]. We
draw from this list of methods to enable the principles of DI and
maintain a user-centric outlook in our design process. Methods
in column three are curated methods for AM and help us
incorporate AM into our design as well as methods that are
meant to be adapted to better incorporate AM.
3.2 DI with AM Process
A full DI with AM process leverages design methods discussed
in the previous section and is shown in Figure 4a. In the
Discovery phase, the primary goal is to identify impactful
opportunities for an organization by leveraging AM. The Define
phase is meant to narrow the focus of the process—to prioritize
which opportunities may have a significant impact and are worth
pursuing further. The Develop phase moves on to generate many

TABLE 1: Examples of Design Innovation (DI) and Design with Additive Manufacturing (DIwAM) Methods

Design Innovation Methods AM Design Methods

5 Whys [24], User Interviews [16], Likes Dislikes [16], PEST AM Opportunity Analysis, AM Business Model Canvas
Analysis [25], Empathic Lead User [26], Contextual Needs Analysis [32], Vaneker AM Opportunities [33]
Discover [27], 4 Lenses of Innovation [28], Market Analysis [29],
Ethnographic Studies [30], Reverse Engineering [16], Patent
Mapping [31]
Affinity Analysis [16], Scenarios [34], Personas [16], Journey AM How Might We Prompts, Vaneker Sustainability
Mapping [17], Mission Statement [16], How Might We [35], Questions [33]
Define Hierarchy of Purpose [16], Design Brief [36], Activity Diagrams
[16], SWOT Analysis [25], Porters 5 Forces [25], Functional Model
[16]
Mind mapping [37], C-Sketch [38], SCAMPER [39], TRIZ [40], Seeded Mind Maps [47], Principled C-Sketch [6], AM
Develop Pugh Chart [41], Pairwise [42], DSM [43], Morph Matrix [44], Functional Modeling [48], Kumke’s AM Lever [49,50],
Design by Analogy [45], Real Win Worth It [46] Knowledge Database [51,52], Topology Optimization [53]
Prototyping Strategies [54], Finite Element Modeling [55], Robust Rapid Prototyping [61], DfAM [62], Design Rules for AM
Deliver Design [56], Sensitivity Analysis [57], Accelerated Life Testing [63], Design Translation, Part Consolidation [64]
[58], Design for X [14], FMEA [59], Design of Experiments [60]

5 Copyright © 2019 ASME

ideas, down-select great ones based on predetermined metrics,
and develop a prototyping strategy to test their feasibility and
desirability. Finally, the Delivery phase sets out to deliver a
production ready design to be reliably additively manufactured.
Discover. The Discover phase should continue to help the
designer understand more about the user, user needs, latent
needs, and real use-case scenarios. In addition to this, there
should also be an effort to understand where there could be
opportunities for AM. One approach would be opportunity-
driven which would help to link the existing opportunities
relating to a design problem and assess if additive manufacturing
could be leveraged to make a difference. Another approach
would be solution-driven where designers can systematically
introduce capabilities of AM to discover where there are
opportunities to innovate based on this new
technology/capability. The AM design Methods that we propose
here are AM Opportunity Analysis, an AM-centric business
model canvas, and AM opportunity checklist by Vaneker [33].
AM opportunity analysis is the suggestion of the AM
opportunities set forth in Section 2. The AM opportunity
checklist is an adaptation of a method proposed by Vaneker. An
AM-centric business model canvas is the use of a business model
canvas paired with the AM opportunities to systematically assess
how the opportunities can be applied. This method is not yet
formalized and validated, but an example of the opportunity for
creating new AM methods.
Define. The Define phase is meant to re-frame an
opportunity statement into something that a design team
understands, provides them with insights and foresights, is
motivated by, and has been validated with real users as a real
opportunity. With respect to AM, there should be a conversation
around the candidate opportunities and if AM-centric innovation
offers potential. AM centric how might we questions could help
to take the AM opportunities identified in the discovery phase
and format them in an exploratory way to more deeply think
about how they could apply to the specific opportunity at hand.
Vaneker’s AM suitability questions could also be used here to
pare down AM opportunities based on which may be most
impactful.
Develop. The Develop phase is where new solutions are
explored, prioritized, and prototyped. In this phase there are
many existing Design Innovation methods that can be applied

FIGURE 4: (a) Design Innovation with Additive Manufacturing (DIwAM) Process Map on left;
(b) Case Study DIwAM – Rocket Fuel Grain and Composite Printer Process Journey on right

6 Copyright © 2019 ASME

including ideation selection, and prototyping methods. The
purpose of this phase is to explore as much of the design space
defined by the design opportunity by ideating solutions and
taking a disciplined approach to testing them for viability and
desirability with users. Many of the AM centric design tools are
adaptations of these. Examples of these are pre-seeded mind
maps by Jensen et al, as well as the functional modelling
approach proposed by Valjak et al. [47,48].
Deliver. The Deliver phase is focused on iteratively
prototyping and testing concepts and models with users, and,
ultimately and iteratively, converging to an implementable and
sustainable solution. The Deliver phase is one of the most well
researched areas of DwAM, as most DfAM methods and
principles fall into this category. Seepersad’s design rules for
SLS [63], Kumke’s DfAM framework [49,50], and other AM
design rules are examples of these methods. A case study using
DIwAM is described in the following section, and an overview
of the case study is shown alongside the DIwAM process in
Figure 4b.
4. CASE STUDY USING DIwAM
This section describes how these curated design methods are
pulled together and implemented in a full DI with AM process,
and summary of the case study is shown in Figure 4b. The
example uses the design and development of a rocket fuel grain
printer for the manufacture of hybrid rocket fuel grains (HRFGs)
executed by a collaborative design team from the SUTD-MIT
IDC and Gilmour Space Technologies. One might expect this
section to follow a 4-section format with sections for each of the
four D’s in DI, however there is significant iteration between the
different phases. As a result, the following section follows the DI
process for the hybrid rocket fuel grains chronologically. A
design signature (Figure 5 from Teo et al. [66]) and process
journey map (Figure 4b) are provided to help the reader orient
themselves to the process. A design signature is a visual way to
see the division of time and methods during the 4D DI process
[66]. Figure 5 is divided into four quadrants that represent the
four stages of the DI process: Discover, Define, Develop,
Deliver. The project starts at the origin and tracks the design
methods and activities chronologically until project completion.
Design signatures are currently mapped retrospectively in order
to understand the amount of time spent in each stage and which
design methods were used.
The original design problem was the fabrication of hybrid
rocket fuel grains (HRFGs) for the propulsion system of a low
earth orbit launch vehicle. Hybrid rockets use a solid fuel “grain”
in the motor that reacts with a liquid or gaseous oxidizer to
produce thrust. The project team was tasked with developing a
means for fabricating these fuel grains.
The team conducted interviews with the engineering
partners to better understand the problem and develop a set of
requirements for the system. Using the AM opportunity vectors,
the team realized that AM could be a potential avenue for
innovative solutions. To assess this opportunity, the team looked
for previous examples of AM being used in the production of
HRFGs.
7 Copyright © 2019 ASME
FIGURE 5: Rocket Fuel Grain and Composite Printer Design
Signature from Teo et al. [66]
Through the ideation process the team referenced the AM
Design Principles, and then had an insight that AM could be used
to produce a two-part solid fuel grain. While a two-part solid fuel
grain is not itself novel, the ability to control the distribution of
the two materials voxel-by-voxel is an innovative solution
enable by AM. This insight led to the creation of a HRFG burn
simulator, as published by Anderson [67], to understand how
burn rates could be modelled. The concept was that if the burn
rate of a two-part fuel grain and oxidizer could be modelled, the
model could also be used as a means to design and optimize the
fuel grains to provide a specific burn and thrust profile for a
rocket. This concept and exploration were uniquely enabled by
AM given that previous attempts towards two-part fuel grains
cited manufacturing issues with such an approach since HRFGs
are typically manufacturing using a casting process.
At this point, the team opted to move forward with
developing a new hybrid AM process that could produce large-
scale material extrusion polymer parts combined with a second
viscous material. The team settled on a system architecture and
chose various systems to prototype, such as the material
deposition system for the viscous phase, the burn simulator, and
the large area gantry system. Once these items were prototyped
and tested, another ideation activity was performed using the c-
sketch method to think about how these components could be
integrated. C-sketch was particularly useful because it allowed
the team to abstract the details of the individual subsystems and
think about their interfaces as a total system.
A mock-up of the system was created to continue to better
understand the subsystem interfaces and parallel prototypes were
created to assess design decisions like gantry configuration.
Once the subsystems and interface configurations were finalized,
the architecture was settled and prototyped iteratively (four
times) to create a functioning fuel grain printer. The printer was
functional, however, not final. The final prototype generated a
number of unknown unknowns that would eventually need to be
solved in the final system. The elicitation of such ‘unknown
unknowns’ or latent needs is well studied and understood as part
of design and prototyping process [68]. Such realizations are
demonstrative of quality design process execution. These
unknowns included tools for designing the fuel grain and its
phase distribution, accuracy considerations for the gantry, and
better and more repeatable deposition of the viscous phase.
Given these considerations, the team was able to validate AM as
a solution enabler to an innovative HRFG design and develop a
final opportunity statement that encompasses the final
requirements of developing an industrial version of the HRFG
printer.
The final printer was used to develop hybrid rocket fuel
grains that have been test fired for Gilmour Space Technologies.
The company has since continued to successfully raise a multi-
million-dollar series A and series B funding round to incorporate
the technology into its launch of Lower Earth Orbit launch
vehicles by 2020 [69,70].
From the case study, it is observed that understanding
potential AM opportunity vectors from the early stages of a
design process can help identify innovative solutions that are
enabled by AM. Additionally, Design Principles for designing
with AM aided in pushing the boundaries of the solutions and
fully leverage the capabilities of AM during the design process.
Moreover, the design innovation process serves as a meaningful
structure and framework for accomplishing these design tasks. It
not only allows us to track and move a design activity forward
towards an innovative solution, but it also enables a meaningful
conversation around the design process, capturing innovative
activity that accurately models the iterative nature of the design
process.
5. LIMITATIONS & FUTURE WORK
This work outlines a systems-level Design Innovation process
that involves additive manufacturing in the different phases of
design and highlights a case study to demonstrate the process in
action. By creating this framework, we have also identified
knowledge creation opportunities where AM methods and
principles are currently sparse. Therefore, there are many
research opportunities identified here regarding tools and
methods for AM in the early stages of the design process.
From Table 1, we can see that the discovery and definition
phases of the design process lack methods that are geared
towards AM. While the AM opportunity vectors and other
exploratory tools present a breadth of potential AM solutions,
there exists an opportunity to develop tools that help designers
map collated and prioritized user needs and functional
requirements to potential AM-centric opportunity spaces that
could be more deeply explored by design teams rather than just
presenting all the potential vectors.
Philosophically, one might suggest that the inclusion of AM
as an innovation avenue during the early stages of design is
counter to the fundamental principle of delaying the involvement
of solutions at early stages in order to not restrict a design space.
However, there is significant demand from organizations that
want to proactively explore such spaces enabled by AM given
the dramatic leap in functional capability versus previous
8 Copyright © 2019 ASME
generations of manufacturing technology. As a result, there
exists an opportunity to develop tools for the efficient
exploration of AM opportunities from the outset of such a
project. The main effort here is to codify design knowledge
around AM and make it understandable, applicable, and
searchable by designers in the future.
Dinar and Rosen have proposed an ontology for design and
AM [71]. Much of their work focuses on an ontology to facilitate
knowledge retrieval when designing for AM opportunities.
Future work could extend the ontology such that the
representation scheme could include earlier stage design terms
that potentially could map to later stage terms. One could
imagine that opportunities identified early on may map to a set
of later-stage solutions and provide fast pathways to developing
those solutions.
Valjak et al. have shown avenues to map product functions
to design principles for AM [48]. Insights from functional
modeling (define method) are used to cue relevant information
(design principles) for use in ideation and the development
phase. In this way, more design methods should strive to take
insights from one phase and show explicit linkages to ideal and
relevant information in consecutive phases. Understanding how
these are interconnected deserves further study.
Additionally, we propose future studies of the effectiveness
of DIwAM. This work is also limited in that it showcases the
outcomes of the DI with AM process through one case study, yet
little was measured during the process beyond what methods
were used. There exists an opportunity to understand how
designers navigated through the DIwAM process, made
decisions, and what methods they found particularly helpful and
easy to use. Moreover, there exists an opportunity to apply the
DIwAM framework to assess the quality of impact that the
resulting designs have had to better compare them to design
outcomes from other design processes.
6. CONCLUSION
The DI with AM process lays the framework for developing and
coordinating complete Design Innovation efforts for innovative
new products that fully leverage AM. The framework allows us
to consider and discover a breadth of innovation opportunities
involving AM, focus and define our exploration efforts, ideate
and develop an innovative set of potential solutions, and, finally,
prototype and deliver and unique and innovative solution
enabled by AM. In the case study, we observe how the DI with
AM process supports the involvement of AM, not just to create
products, but also to inspire the creation of new classes of AM
technologies. The process and resulting technology have fueled
innovation at Gilmour Space Technologies and as a proof of
concept, and it helped the organization to successfully raise
Series A and Series B funding with the goal of a launch in 2020.
The reality is that the utility of AM is not simply a means of
product and component production, it is a powerful tool that is
useful at all levels of abstraction and phases of the design
process. DI is comprised of methods, principles, and process. We
have created the process and the work that follows should help
to develop further both methods and principles. With proper
support of validated methods and principles to support the DI
with AM framework, new opportunities for innovation will be
enabled by Additive Manufacturing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the SUTD-MIT International
Design Centre (IDC, https://idc.sutd.edu.sg/) and Gilmour Space
Technologies. Any opinions, results, or conclusions in the paper
are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the sponsors.
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