The Potential of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Realizing a Sustainable Society

Abstract

Today, additive manufacturing (AM), which refers to a process by which digital design data is used to build up artifacts by decomposing material, is gaining growing interest from industry. The AM's capability for producing complex struc-ture in extremely small lot size can enable more optimal design for today's manufacturing products. Through such optimal design of each product, energy and material consumption of society can be significantly reduced. As AM can produce a wide variety of components in one-by-one production, the total number of the products (and components) can be significantly reduced. In addition, the products made by AM can be optimally designed and manufactured for each particular purpose. This implies these products have no unused functions that may consume additional energy and materials. The objective of the paper is to propose the method for evaluating AM's potential for reducing environmental impact of society considering these factors caused by introducing AM technology into industry.