ABSTRACT
Measures to improve the efficiency of production processes always include the application of new and innovative manufacturing methods. Therefore, not unexpectedly, over the course of time applications of the rapid technology turned out to be potentials in the modern product development process (Kamrani & Nasr 2006). In addition to the creation of physical prototypes (rapid prototyping-RP), process improvements of the past years enabled the direct fabrication of marketable products with series-identical or nearseries properties (rapid manufacturing-RM). Hopkinson et al. (2006) even evaluate this technology as an industrial revolution. Significant advancements in that field deal with the expansion of the spectrum of applicable materials and the improvement of process parameters. However, the resulting increase of application specific interdependencies has a negative effect on process preparation. The procedure of process planning becomes increasingly more complex and requires the knowledge of all process influencing variables. Due to rapidly preceding advancements in the field of layered manufacturing, companies are frequently affected by a lack of experiences which are necessary in order to prepare the build process. Up to now, a knowledge base recorded in standards and guidelines is not existent. As a result, the entire process know-how is often substantially predicated on long-time experiences of RP machine manufacturers.
