Additive Manufacturing at Apple

I joined the Manufacturing Design Architecture team as an Additive Manufacturing Subject Matter Expert intern in 2023. Due to NDA, I am not able to disclose exactly what I worked on during my time at Apple.

Broadly, I led the development of new additive manufacturing (AM) processes for multiple lines of business at Apple. I worked closely with overseas vendors and contract manufacturers (CMs) to become a technical expert in my new manufacturing area and build institutional knowledge for this process at Apple.

The goal of my program was to understand viability and quality of my AM process for mass production. Alongside our commercial & supply chain teams, I evaluated potential vendors based on technical and commercial viability. I worked with these equipment suppliers to establish equipment and process qualification phases for my program, working through DFMs and designing trial parts to evaluate each process step. As a subject matter expert, I was in charge of setting detailed MSOPs for vendors and deciding evaluation criteria to benchmark the new process.

As part of this work, I worked in Asia for a month to visit vendors and work with them to run trials. In this environment, I learned onsite problem solving and developed strong communication skills.

I worked with several cross functional teams at Apple, communicating between product design, commercial & supply chain, manufacturing, and materials science teams. As the DRI, I set the schedule and ensured timeliness of the development efforts for exploring this new manufacturing process.

Throughout my work, I took my AM process through several stages: from scoping and evaluating potential vendors, to developing a supplier and process evaluation plan, to the start of qualifying the process through trial parts and connecting equipment vendors and CMs.