The use of microfused parts in high hardness material is an alternative to meet
the market for maintenance and replacement of wear parts for the textile industry.
However, the cost and time of development involving the necessary molds for this
practice are, among others, a barrier to the production of new products. The Additive
Manufacturing promotes a revolution in the productive process when compared
directly to the subtractive system of production. By introducing an Additive
Manufacturing process for mold making for microfusion, and based on the 7 Lean
Manufacturing losses, it is possible to see what impact the use of this technology can
promote against the subtractive process. The purpose of this case study is to verify
the impact of the use of Additive Manufacturing when inserted in a 100% subtractive
production process in a specific company. The tools used for visualization and
productive comparison between the subtractive and additive processes were the
Value Stream Map and the Spaghetti Diagram. The productive data concerning the
manufacture of 2 wells for microfusion molds were collected, both in the subtractive
and additive processes. In order to collect the necessary information for the study, a
Data Collection Protocol was developed specifically for this case study. The data
obtained were inserted in the tools selected for the study in order to visualize the
impact. In this case study, the process where the MA was included as a productive
medium showed reduction in all 7 losses of Lean Manufacturing, when compared to
the 100% subtractive system of cavity production. This study can be applied in other
researches that contain productive similarity with that presented in the paper.
