Evaluation Method and Collaborative Study of Sustainable Additive-Manufacturing
It has been commonly recognized that additive manufacturing (AM) enables cost-effective and efficient production towards sustainability. A rigorous evaluation method is required to further investigate the measurement method and efficiency before AM can be well-positioned in sustainable manufacturing and become the industry mainstream. Cost reduction plays key role in manufacturing industry. Compared to conventional manufacturing (CM), cost of AM is volume independent. In contrary, CM production requires a certain volume to share initial tooling cost to achieve cost reduction. This constraint limits CM from service on demand, and leave ambiguity behind. Invisibility of AM advantage in cost factors blocks AM technologies from appropriate process and affects its applications. The major issues AM encountering are the scaling, speed and size of products. Enhancement in scaling threshold and cost modeling are the novelty of this study and a breakthrough of AM issues. Through this study, generic equations are derived by using Convergence Effect and Buy-to-Fly (BTF) ratio. The Divide-and-Conquer approach further supports scaling factors and dependencies of conventional manufacturing (CM) cost modeling as well as AM methods. Consequently, appropriate AM technologies and CM convergence threshold can enhance standardization, decision support, and pre-pilot of AM society through this rigorous benchmarking. Advantages of AM are identified, and a collaboration pattern is proposed to connect large enterprise (LE), SME, and home-based-business (HBB) into an AM society. Through this society, advantages of AM can be fully utilized, scaling and speed issues can be resolved, and AM’s dominant role in sustainable manufacturing becomes feasible.