ABSTRACT
Digital manufacturing is the ability to describe every aspect of the product development process digitally using tools that include digital design, computer-aided design, office documents, product life cycle management systems, analysis software, simulation, and computer-aided manufacturing software. The idea is that the passage of data from one department or discipline to another should be seamless so that the data created is immediately reusable in a different discipline. Direct digital manufacturing (DDM) technology fabricates functional components directly from computer models. Although DDM is generally referred to as an additive process, it includes both additive and subtractive processes in this book as long as a part is fabricated directly from an electronic digital representation. Such a process will lead to dramatic reductions in lead time and manufacturing costs for high-value, low-volume components such as gas turbine engine cases, complex unitized airframes, and other products built from expensive raw materials or requiring high-cost finishing operations.
