  Design For Manufacturing (DFM) approaches aim to integrate manufacturability
aspects during the design stage. Most of DFM approaches usually consider only
one manufacturing process, but products competitiveness may be improved by
designing hybrid modular products, in which products are seen as 3-D puzzles
with modules realized aside by the best manufacturing process and further
gathered. A new DFM system is created in order to give quantitative information
during the product design stage of which modules will benefit in being machined
and which ones will advantageously be realized by an additive process (such as
Selective Laser Sintering or laser deposition). A methodology for a
manufacturability evaluation in case of a subtractive or an additive
manufacturing process is developed and implemented in a CAD software. Tests are
carried out on industrial products from automotive industry.
