Investigating an approach for the dissemination of formalised Design for Additive Manufacturing knowledge

The literature shows that research into Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) education is limited. Although there are works that have studied various aspects of DfAM education, no effort has been put to investigate the dissemination of formalized DfAM knowledge to achieve the exploitation of Additive Manufacturing potentials and to enable the acquisition of DfAM knowledge by novice designers. Therefore, in this thesis, a new approach to disseminating DfAM knowledge was explored. The thesis began with a Literature review across two broad areas: Design Knowledge and Design for Additive Manufacturing and revealed the need to further investigate an additional area; Design for Additive Manufacturing knowledge. The research employed a mixed-method approach and consisted of four studies. Study I utilised a bibliometric analysis to shed light on the path with which the PhD would be conducted. Study II deployed a survey approach consisting of online questionnaires to investigate the knowledge that designers possess based on the developed DfAM knowledge classification.

Similarly, in Study III a survey approach was deployed to investigate designers’ learning media preferences in DfAM. Finally, Study IV used semi-structured interviews to complement the findings from Study III and investigated the development of a suitable approach for DfAM knowledge dissemination. The research showed that designers possess the knowledge of AM Potentials and have least considered and applied the knowledge of AM process and parameters in their design projects. It revealed that DfAM knowledge development should focus on areas such as sustainability, AM materials, design frameworks and methods.  Furthermore, the research revealed that designers had learnt from experts/colleagues in their past projects and similarly, prefer to learn from experts/colleagues for their future DfAM projects. Factors such as cost, and availability contributed to the least preference for other learning media such as experimentation/experience. As an outcome of this research, an approach through which experts/colleagues can disseminate the knowledge to design for AM was prototyped. The developed dissemination approach has the potential to capture the learning journey of designers, thus enabling novice designers to grow to become experts in DfAM. Furthermore, it provides an avenue to disseminate both tacit and explicit knowledge to novice designers and provides an avenue to rethink the DfAM curriculum to reflect the learning needs of designers at various stages in their DfAM careers.