Exploring the influence of an Additive Manufacturing integration on future MRO processes in aeronautics

Additive Manufacturing offers a high potential in the aerospace due to its freedom of design and the ability to manufacture complex and lightweight parts. Profound changings of the existing processes can be expected for the area of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) as well. It is described with the help of scenarios which chances result from the integration of this technology while different applications are considered. It starts with the implementation of AM as another manufacturing technology for the repair of spare parts. The precision reduces the effort for post-processing in comparison to the conventional manufacturing methods such as the build-up welding. If an unexpected part breakdown occurs and the aircraft has to stay on ground, there are high demands on the logistics to deliver the required spare parts from the warehouse as fast as possible. The storage of spare parts causes extremely high costs and can be considerably reduced with the help of Additive Manufacturing. Distributed generative manufacturing centers can lead to a far-reaching restructuring of the existing processes where the required spare part is manufactured locally on demand. The resulting opportunities and risks for the involved market actors are shown within the presentation. It is described how MRO service providers and OEMs are affected by that and which changes of today’s processes are necessary to implement the presented scenarios.