In the last decade, PBF-LB/M projects have received large amounts of public funding aimed at the maturation of the technology through research and development. PBF-LB/M is a technology that has been in development from the embryonic stage to the cusp of a fully industrialized technology completely in the information age. One of the disadvantages of introducing a new highly anticipated manufacturing methodology in the modern day is the visibility of the lessons learned and failures in the manufacturing technology development process. The immense number of publications on the technology has made visible the high complexity of influencing factors and the challenges of process control in PBF-LB/M process [1,2]. Publications have made the case that PBF-LB/M, as compared to other conventional manufacturing process, has greater challenges to address and solve in the areas of reproducibility and repeatability.

The Laser Powder Bed Fusion process has many influencing variables which cause potential users to question whether quality assurance including repeatability and reproducibility can be managed and maintained in a large-scale production environment.

This paper contends that despite the number of influencing factors on the process, the resulting product quality is not only controllable with the correct measures but can be more reproducible and repeatable than other commonly used manufacturing process routes. The authors identify the significant influencing factors for their processes and how the deviations highlighted in literature can be one by one either ruled out, controlled or minimized to reducing process deviations to a manageable level. This, however, requires the rigorous adherence to either standards or internal specifications, processes, and standard operating procedures from parameter identification down to serial manufacturing as the cascade reveals.

In addition, real production data is displayed analysed and compared from a well-controlled full-scale production to demonstrate the capability of the technology. The authors identify areas of improvement where further alteration of PBF-LB/M process control and repeatability provide an upside potential when compared to the physical limitation that are limiting the levels of control that can be achieved in conventional manufacturing processes.

[1] L. Dowling et al.: A review of critical repeatability and reproducibility issues in powder bed fusion.
[2] G. Tapia & A. Elwany: A review on process monitoring and control in metal-based additive manufacturing. J. Manuf. Sci. Eng. 136 (2014)