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3D Printing: New Economic Paradigms and Strategic Shifts

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Abstract

3D printing (3DP) is a classic disruptive technology that is likely to have a huge and widespread impact on the world. This revolutionary technology is likely to dramatically change business models, shift production location, shrink supply chains, and alter the global economic order, potentially degrading the importance of the Asian export manufacturing platforms and revitalizing the US innovation engine and the US economy. In the process, 3DP will change the ‘global operating environment’ for policy makers as well as business and labor. 3DP is already a proven ‘general purpose’ technology that is being used for an enormous range of applications, such as fabricating spare and new parts for planes, trains and automobiles and thousands of items in between. It has huge environmental benefits, including substantial reduction in resources consumed in production, manufacturing products only on demand, and ‘just in time production’ of goods at or near where they are consumed, greatly reducing the carbon footprint of goods produced and shipped thousands of miles to consumers.
3D Printing: New Economic Paradigms and
Strategic Shifts
Banning Garrett
Atlantic Council, Washington, DC
Abstract
3D printing (3DP) is a classic disruptive technology that is likely to have a huge and widespread impact on the world.
This revolutionary technology is likely to dramatically change business models, shift production location, shrink supply
chains, and alter the global economic order, potentially degrading the importance of the Asian export manufacturing
platforms and revitalizing the US innovation engine and the US economy. In the process, 3DP will change the global
operating environmentfor policy makers as well as business and labor. 3DP is already a proven general purposetech-
nology that is being used for an enormous range of applications, such as fabricating spare and new parts for planes,
trains and automobiles and thousands of items in between. It has huge environmental benets, including substantial
reduction in resources consumed in production, manufacturing products only on demand, and just in time production
of goods at or near where they are consumed, greatly reducing the carbon footprint of goods produced and shipped
thousands of miles to consumers.
Policy Implications
Policy makers need to embrace this new technology and prepare for its disruptive impact on the economy, labor,
the global economy and geopolitics, security, and the military. They need to recognize that international competi-
tion in 3DP development and use is intensifying and will be a key element of economic competitiveness in the
future.
Governments need to focus resources on advancing the technology and its utilization by their businesses and the
government itself, especially the military and space programs.
Policy makers need to anticipate and prepare for the downsidesof 3DP, ranging from intellectual property theft
and protection to security concerns about printing of guns, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and other destruc-
tive devices.
Governments, especially in the developing world, need to capitalize on 3DP to leapfrogdevelopment stages and
to create local enterprises to manufacture goods, including from local materials, to satisfy and expand local mar-
kets, provide employment, and build national economies.
Governments should seize the opportunity of 3DP to reduce carbon emissions and enhance sustainability through
reduced transport of goods and far more productive use of raw materials.
In his 2013 State of the Union address, US president Ba-
rack Obama declared, 3D printinghas the potential to
revolutionize the way we make almost everything.Presi-
dent Obama is right: 3DP, formally known as Additive
Manufacturing,
1
is likely to upend the last two centuries
of approaches to design and manufacturing with pro-
found geopolitical, economic, social, demographic, envi-
ronmental, and national security implications that will
unfold over the coming two decades and beyond.
2
The
US is especially poised to take advantage of this new
technology, but it will likely provide an opportunity for
all who seize it.
The Economist has hailed 3DP as the basis of a third
industrial revolution.
3
This new industrial revolution is
likely to dramatically change business models, shift
production location, shrink supply chains, and alter the
global economic order, potentially degrading the impor-
tance of the Asian manufacturing platform and revitaliz-
ing the US innovation engine and the US economy. In
the process, 3DP will change the global operating envi-
ronmentfor policy makers. It especially has the potential
to transform operations for the military, from printing
spare parts and food on ships and at forward bases to
redesigning weapons and military equipment and the
business model for purchasing and maintaining those
systems.
4
3DP is already a proven general purposetechnology
that is being used for an enormous range of applications,
Global Policy (2013) doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12119 ©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy
GPOL 12119
Dispatch: 6.12.13 CE:
Journal Code Manuscript No.
No. of pages: 6 PE: Sumathi
Special Section Article
such as fabricating spare and new parts for planes, trains
and automobiles and thousands of items in between.
5
Future applications that are under development range
from printing human organs and food to printing airplane
wings and large structures, including houses and large
buildings and bases on the moon and Mars. NASA views
3DP as an essential part of its space exploration plans, with
3D printers replicating themselves and making spare parts
as well as large structures in space.
6
And, of course, 3DP
has recently attracted attention of the US Congress and
the public with reports that people have printed guns and
high-capacity magazines for assault weapons.
7
Overall, 3DP is a classic disruptive technology
8
that is
likely to have a huge and widespread impact on the
world. 3DP machines vary widely in size, resolution,
materials used, cost, and applications. Moreover, 3DP will
impact different economic and manufacturing sectors in
different ways and at different rates. While some skeptics
maintain that 3DP is overhyped, General Electrics CEO
Jeffrey Immelt commented at a February 2013 confer-
ence in Washington that 3DP is worth my time, atten-
tion, money, and effort.
9
It is not too risky to project the
continued growth in the manufacturing revolution that
has been sparked by 3DP. Since 3DP has many inherent
advantages over other manufacturing technologies, any
other technology that could theoretically replace 3DP
would likely go in the same disruptive direction and just
do the job better and cheaper.
3DPs impact will be even greater as the technology
matures and is ever more widely used. For policy makers,
3DP is transforming their world today and promises to
have a far greater impact in the future, posing dangers,
opportunities, and overall a changing foreign policy and
national security landscape. This new technology is also
being developed in a new era in which governments do
not control and are often not the key innovators in many
new critical technologies. 3DP is the poster child for a
new, strategically important technology that is not only
out of the control of governments but is being rapidly
developed from the bottom upby tens of thousands of
do-it-yourself (DIY) hobbyists as well as from the top
downby businesses, universities, and government-spon-
sored research. The 3DP genie is already out of the bot-
tle. The challenge for the US and other countries is to
capitalize on the huge potential economic, environmen-
tal and social benets of this technology while hedging
against potential security risks created by the new capa-
bilities the technology is rapidly generating.
A third industrial revolution?
3DP offers a number of structural benets over tradi-
tional manufacturing:
10
Increased product design freedom: traditionally, prod-
ucts designs are constrained by the limitations of the
machines that will produce them. By contrast, 3DP
processes allow designers to selectively place material
only where it is needed;
No cost for complexity: in traditional manufacturing,
the more complicated a product, the more expensive
it is to manufacture if it is even possible to make it
at all. By contrast, 3DP is a single toolprocess no
matter the desired geometry, there is no need to
change any aspect of the process;
On demand production in batches of one: a given
manufacturing facility is capable of printing a huge
range of types of products without retooling and
each printing run can be customized without addi-
tional cost. Moreover, products can be printed on
demand without the need to build-up inventories of
products and spare parts.
From mass production to mass customization: Since
printing one-of-a-kind products is no more costly than
mass producing the same object, 3DP technology
enables the design and efcient manufacture of per-
sonalized products. This unique capability of 3DP is
driving a transition from mass production to mass cus-
tomization;
11
Simplication of manufacturing process: Since 3DP
creates physical products directly from a standardized
digital le, these computer-controlled processes
require a low level of operator expertise and reduce
the amount of human interaction needed to create an
object;
From making prototypes to manufacturing nished
products: Initially, 3DP was referred to as rapid proto-
typingand was primarily used to quickly fabricate
conceptual models of new products for form and t
evaluation. 3DP technologiesuse has evolved from
solely creating prototypes to fabricating parts for func-
tional testing, to creating tooling for injection molding
and sand casting, and nally, to directly producing
end-use parts;
Eliminating supply chains and assembly lines for many
products: The nal product or large pieces of a nal
product like a car can be produced by 3DP in one
process, unlike conventional manufacturing in which
hundreds or thousands of parts are assembled;
Designs, not products, move around the world: digital
les to be printed anywhere by any printer that can
meet the design parameters. The Internet rst elimi-
nated distance as a factor in moving information
instantly across space;
Instant production on a global scale: the representa-
tion of physical artifacts with a digital le thus enables
rapid global distribution of products, thus potentially
transforming product distribution much in the same
way the MP3 did for music;
A major boost to innovation: The rise of 3DP will likely
lead to the re-invention of many old products, as well
©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2013)
Banning Garrett
2
as to extraordinary new innovations. Since 3DP pro-
cesses can print virtually anything that can be
designed on a computer thus eliminating the limita-
tions posed by machine tools, stamping and molding
engineers and designers will no longer be limited in
their designs because of previous manufacturing tech-
nologies. New hybrid materials, such as nanocompos-
ites via 3DP, are being researched to take design and
material properties manipulation even further;
12
Stimulation of new interest in design and engineering:
The direct relationship between the designer and the
product a relationship that has been strained by the
past 200 years of industrial production methods will
be similar to the relationship between software engi-
neers and their products. As a result, interest in engi-
neering and industrial design could be spurred, as has
happened in the eld of computer science and soft-
ware engineering over the last half century.
Reducing waste and emissions: 3DP is likely to play a
signicant role in dramatically increasing the efciency of
resource use and in lowering overall carbon emissions,
from the process of manufacturing and to delivering
products to the end user. As only the material needed
for parts is used, there is nearly zero waste. Also, printing
on demand can eliminate storage and inventory costs,
and can reduce or eliminate the use of toxic chemicals
often used in conventional manufacturing processes.
Bringing it all back home: long-term shift in
the global economy?
The widespread use of 3DP could signicantly alter the
structure of the global economy. Production and distribu-
tion of material products could begin to be de-globalized
with manufacturing of many goods closer to the point of
consumption. Manufacturing thus could be pulled away
from manufacturing platformslike China and production
brought back to the countries where the products are
consumed. This localization of production could poten-
tially reduce global economic imbalances as export coun-
triessurpluses are reduced and importing countries
reliance on imports shrink with a new form of import
substitutiontaking hold.
This shift will reduce the movement of nished goods
around the world. The decentralization of manufacturing
to potentially vast numbers of sites all over the globe also
will reduce the needed quantitative output of any one
facility and thus render less important the speed of manu-
facturing each item. Mass productionof hundreds of
thousands of a given product may be done by producing
thousands of the same product on hundreds of printers
that are near the source of demand around the world
rather than hundreds of thousands of the same item all at
one factory. This would also serve to bring supply and
demand into near perfect alignment as the products
would only be printed where and when there was specic
demand. Moreover, the same printers producing smaller
numbers of identical items can be instantly reprogrammed
to produce different products as demanded, while the
assembly line at a mass production facility would have to
be shut down and retooled to produce a different product
and the range of different products that could be pro-
duced by that assembly line would be extremely limited
compared with the capability of the local 3DP facility.
Additionally, costs could be reduced by deploying printers
and materials to make a wide range of spare parts, rather
than keeping all the possible spares at or near where they
might be needed. This will lower the cost and eliminate
the long delays, sometimes extending to many months, in
acquiring necessary spare parts. The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on printing
technologies especially for spare parts.
13
Manufacturers
also could print spare parts from their stored computer
les rather than maintain huge stores of spare parts, many
of which may never be sold and in the meantime are
costly to maintain in inventory.
3DP will create new industries and professions. Produc-
tion of printers of all kinds and sophistication is already a
rapidly expanding industry with a growing customer
base from industrial and individual home printers to cre-
ation of manufacturing centers, printers in local stores,
and government agencies.
14
The shift in global manufac-
turing to 3DP processes could potentially involve trillions
of dollars in business over the coming decades, including
the value of products produced, the printers themselves,
and professional services, including product engineering
and design. The production and distribution of printer
cartridges of all sizes with a wide variety of materials is
likely to be an especially protable industry as it has
been in the 2D printing world for Hewlett-Packard and
other printer makers. Lawyers will also nd a large niche
in the industry as protection of 3DP intellectual property
will likely be a litigious challenge as designs for products
potentially can be widely disseminated and identical
products produced by compatible printers potentially
replicating the problem with software piracy.
The reduced need for labor in manufacturing could be
politically destabilizing in some economies that rely on
traditional manufacturing for a large percentage of their
labor force. Developing countries without large factories
employing large numbers of workers, however, may ben-
et from encouraging entrepreneurs to set up 3DP facili-
ties for design and manufacture for local consumption.
This would expand these countriesskilled labor forces
and manufacturing sectors to produce goods appropriate
for local consumers, reduce reliance on expensive
imports and reap the prots from this production.
Countries with aging societies would benet from the
ability to produce more goods with fewer people while
Global Policy (2013) ©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
3D Printing: New Economic Paradigms and Strategic Shifts 3
reducing reliance on imports. This could substantially
increase overall productivity of these societies, which
would otherwise fall as the ratio of employed to retired
shifted toward fewer workers to support the growing
proportion of the population that is elderly and retired.
3DP printed medical equipment and bioprinted organs
and eventually targeted nano therapies could also signi-
cantly lower the cost of health care, which, along with
pensions, is expected to be a major drag on economic
growth in coming decades.
The military dimension
Potential security threats inherent with 3DP are already
evident in initial DIY successes in printing guns and high-
capacity magazines for assault weapons. No doubt terror-
ists will nd other uses for 3DP besides reducing their
reliance on supply chains for weapons. IEDs for example,
could be more easily disguised as ordinary civilian items.
There seems to be little governments can or should
do to stop the development of 3DP technology. They will
have to hedge against possible as well as actual threats
posed by this technology, which, fortunately so far do
not appear to include making new types of lethal equip-
ment but only enhancing the ability to elude controls
and detection in production of already existing types of
weapons. In the long run, however, there could be new
classes of weapons developed with 3DP.
The geo-economic impact of 3DP could affect the mis-
sion of the US military. A decline of mass production of
products on assembly lines at the end of long and com-
plex supply chains could lead to a peaking and gradual
reduction of global shipping of nished goods. This
could reduce the magnitude of the challenge of protect-
ing sea lanes with naval forces. Presumably raw materials
will continue to move around the planet by ship but the
quantity of shipping would likely be sharply reduced.
Increased resource productivity through 3DP could also
lower quantitative demand for natural resources and thus
reduce the likelihood of resource conict. The economic
and environmental relief offered by 3DP could include
easing demand for livestock through 3D bioprinting
15
of
meat, poultry and sh over the next two decades as the
growing middle class seeks to literally move up the food
chain.
16
3DP will not only change the national security environ-
ment for the military but also the way it operates. The
US military is already beneting from 3DP medical
advances from printing skin and prosthetics and is likely
to help spur further development of the technology that
could enhance the survival and rehabilitation of
wounded or injured military personnel. 3DP will also play
an increasingly important role manufacturing spare parts,
especially on ships and at forward bases, greatly reduc-
ing repair time and cost. The military could benet
substantially in the future from requiring defense con-
tractors to provide the Defense Department the intellec-
tual property and the computer les for most if not all
parts of every weapons system so the military has the
resources and rights to produce spare parts, which would
not only speed repairs but provide huge savings in main-
tenance costs over the lifetime of weapons systems and
other equipment. In the longer term, 3DP provides the
opportunity to substantially redesign weapons systems
themselves as well as the individual parts of weapons.
These redesigns could reduce the cost, weight and com-
plexity of systems while increasing their capabilities and
effectiveness.
17
Many of these capabilities that benet the military will
be critically important for NASA for human exploration of
space. NASA has already commissioned the development
of 3DP for the International Space Station (ISS), especially
for printing spare parts. Made-In-Space, a Silicon Valley
startup, has built printers that have passed all NASA tests
for certication. Its rst 3D printer likely will be launched
to the ISS in mid-2014. NASA has also commissioned
development of 3D printers for food and for building
structures on the Moon.
Conclusions: the world forever changed?
The pace of development and implementation of 3DP is,
of course, uncertain and likely to vary widely for different
types of manufactured products. Many consumer prod-
ucts may be cheaper to mass produce by traditional
methods and shipped to points of consumption for a
long time. Nevertheless, there will likely be tipping points
in various elds of production at which it becomes nec-
essary for manufacturers of a given type of product to
change to the new process or lose their competitive
edge and risk extinction. This will likely be an uneven
process and could take many years longer in some areas
than in others.
The impact of 3DP on manufacturing, the environ-
ment, the global economy and geopolitics is likely to
occur gradually over several decades but the cumulative
impact is likely to be disruptive and revolutionary. This
has been the case with the personal computers, the In-
ternet, and now mobile computing. Foreseeing the spe-
cic developmental paths and timetables as well as the
economic, social, political and security impact and impli-
cations of these technologies is not possible. Virtually no
one foresaw Google, Facebook, or the iPhone even a
decade before they were created. But analysts did fore-
cast broad, revolutionary implications of the Internet. So,
too, can it be foreseen that 3DP will revolutionize the
way we make almost everythingwith huge implications
for society, even if the timing and shape of this technol-
ogys strategic impact are not completely discernable at
this stage in its development.
©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2013)
Banning Garrett
4
The impact of 3DP could go beyond transforming the
manufacturing process and rebalancing the global econ-
omy, especially if it contributes to changing the trajecto-
ries of some of the most worrisome trends in
environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate
change. 3DPs benets toward protecting the environ-
ment and developing a sustainable global economy
could be even more signicant than its effects on the
global economy. The national security implications of
3DP thus extend far beyond the threats of printing guns
and IEDs and the benets of reducing military equipment
costs and procurement time for spare parts. 3DP can
help create a safer world in which national security plan-
ners face less poverty, political instability and military
conict by reducing the environmental impact of human
activity, from climate change to resource depletion, while
improving the lives of billions of people.
Notes
The author gratefully acknowledges review of this article by Dr Tho-
mas A. Campbell, associate director for outreach, and research asso-
ciate professor, at the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied
Science (ICTAS), Virginia Tech (www.ictas.vt.edu).
1. 3DP is also known as Additive Manufacturing (AM), which is a
more generic term denoting the opposite of subtractive manu-
facturing. Since 3DP has become the most widely used term in
the media for the 3DP process, this paper uses the terms 3DP
instead of Additive Manufacturing. There are other manufactur-
ing processes such as stamping, casting, and injection mold-
ing that are not subtractive, but are for mass production of
identical products made from one material such as plastic for
toys or steel for bolts.
2. This article is based in part on Could 3DP Printing Change the
World? Technologies, Potential and Implications of Additive
Manufacturing, written by the author with Thomas Campbell,
Christopher Williams and Olga Ivanova of Virginia Tech, pub-
lished by the Atlantic Council in October 2011. Available online
from: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/les/publication_pdfs/
403/101711_ACUS_3DPrinting.PDF [Accessed 28 November
2013].
3. The Economist,Special Report: Manufacturing and Innovation,
April 21, 2012.
4. See the National Intelligence Councils December 2012 report,
Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds (pp. 9093), which dis-
cusses the current and potential implications of 3DP, although
some of the developments it foresees as possible by 2030 are
likely to be available in the next few years. Available online
from: http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/global--
trends-2030 [Accessed 28 November 2013].
5. Conceptually, 3DP has existed since the time of raised relief
maps, in which 3D terrain is approximated by stacking 2D lay-
ers. 3DP technology rst emerged in 1977, when Swainson sug-
gested a method of creating 3D objects directly by using two
electromagnetic radiation beams and a sensitive polymer that
solidies in the presence of the beam. This method is consid-
ered to be the ancestor of modern stereolithography. Over the
past four decades, 3DP techniques have further evolved.
Researchers in the domains of mechanical engineering and
materials science have focused on improving old and creating
new techniques, as well as developing novel materials.
6. See Spector, D. (2013) In The Future, Astronauts Could Print Out
Their Moon Bases,Business Insider, February 4 [online]. Available
from: http://www.businessinsider.com/3d-printed-moon-base-2013-
2 [Accessed 28 November 2013].
7. See, for example, Rosenwald, M. S. (2013) Weapons Made with
3D Printers Could Test Gun-Control Efforts,Washington Post,
February 20 [online]. Available from: http://www.washington-
post.com/local/weapons-made-with-3-d-printers-could-test-gun-
control-efforts/2013/02/18/9ad8b45e-779b-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7
adb_story.html [Accessed 28 November 2013].
8. Noted in an excellent analysis of the impact of 3DP, 3D Printing
and the Future of Manufacturing, CSC Leadingedge Forum
Technology Program, Fall 2012 [online]. Available from: http://
www.csc.com/lef/insights/92142-3d_printing_and_the_future_of_
manufacturing [Accessed 28 November 2013].
9. Is 3D Printing Overrated? Not at All, Says GEs Jeffrey Immelt,
Theatlantic.com, February 7, 2013 [online]. Available from: http://
www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/is-3d-printing-over-
rated-not-at-all-says-ges-jeffrey-immelt/272965/ [Accessed 28
November 2013].
10. See 1
also The Ten Principles of 3D Printingin Fabricated, pp.
2024.
11. While 3DP technologies offer critical advantages over traditional
manufacturing processes, there are inherent limitations in the
processes that keep them from being a panacea for every man-
ufacturing problem. In their current embodiments, 3DP pro-
cesses are limited for mass production purposes since the build
rate is much slower than that of an injection molding machine
making large numbers of identical, single material products.
While 3DP processes will continue to increase in speed, it is
unlikely they will ever be able create parts as fast as molding
technologies. The bottleneck lies in the fundamental physics of
the processes it is not possible to scan a laser (and cure mate-
rial, and recoat each layer) at a speed comparable to that of
injection molding. This limitation is only valid for the production
of several thousand of a common part, however. Since tooling
must be created for each unique part one wishes to injection
mold, 3DP is the preferred process when custom parts, or low-
volume production runs, are needed.
12. Elliott, A., Ivanova, O., Williams, C. and Campbell, T. (2013) Inkjet
Printing of Quantum Dots in Photopolymer for use in Additive
Manufacturing of Nanocomposites,Advanced Engineering Mate-
rials, in press. DOI: 10.1002/adem.201300020.
13. DARPAsdisruptive manufacturing technologiesprogram is
described at http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Progr3DPs/
Disruptive_Manufacturing_Technologies_(DMT).aspx 2
, accessed
July 2011. DARPA has been supporting the overall development
of 3DP processes.
14. 3D printing will be a $5.2 billion market by 2020.http://
money.cnn.com/video/technology/2011/06/02/t_tt_3d_printer_
systems.cnnmoney/?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn3 3
, accessed July
2011.
15. See, for example, the initial efforts of Modern Meadow at http://
modernmeadow.com/ and the video presentation at http://
youtu.be/waro4LJDZvU. See 4
also Fabricated, op. cit., p. 148.
16. Some indication of the dramatic rise in meat consumption with
the rise of the middle class can be seen in the growth of meat
consumption in China from 8 million tons at the beginning
of the countrys reform process in 1978 to 71 million tons in
Global Policy (2013) ©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
3D Printing: New Economic Paradigms and Strategic Shifts 5
2012 nearly a 900 per cent increase. See Larson, C. (2013) Los-
ing Arable Land, China Faces Stark Choice: Adapt or Go Hungry,
Science, 339, pp. 664665.
17. For further implications of 3DP for the military, see Drushal, J. R.
(2013) Additive Manufacturing: Implications to the Army
Organic Industrial Base in 2030.Washington, DC: Atlantic
Council.
Author Information
Banning Garrett, Strategic Foresight Senior Fellow for Innovation
and Global Trends at the Atlantic Council. Besides his work on glo-
bal trends and technology, he has written on Sino-American rela-
tions for four decades.
©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2013)
Banning Garrett
6
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... designers unprecedented freedom to push the boundaries of innovation [3]. The automotive industry exemplifies this by using AM to design and produce lightweight components, such as the lattice structures in Porsche's 3D-printed car seats, reducing vehicle weight without compromising strength. ...
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This bibliographic analysis explores the evolving landscape of additive manufacturing (AM) in the context of Industry 4.0 and the emerging paradigms of Industry 5.0. This research critically examines the key literature and scholarly works to clarify the evolution, challenges, and opportunities presented by integrating AM technologies with digital transformation and advanced industrial practices. The exploration begins by tracing the foundational concepts of Industry 4.0, emphasizing the role of cyber–physical systems, data analytics, and automation in reshaping manufacturing ecosystems. It then moves to the developments of Industry 5.0, focusing on human-centric approaches, collaborative robotics, and sustainable manufacturing strategies that extend beyond automation. The impact of AM technologies across various sectors, from aerospace and automotive industries to healthcare and consumer goods, is central to this analysis. This article synthesizes empirical studies, case analyses, and theoretical frameworks to discern the synergies, challenges, and prospects of integrating AM into Industry 4.0 and the evolving Industry 5.0. Through this bibliographic journey, readers gain insights into the transformative potential of AM as a catalyst for innovation, agility, and sustainability in the digital age. The findings underscore the need for interdisciplinary collaborations, policy frameworks, and technological advancements to harness AM’s full potential within Industry 4.0 and 5.0.
... With the use of computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software, a digital manufacturing device known as 3D printing creates three-dimensional items [41]. Most 3D printing is done by extrusion, binder jetting, inkjet printing, or bioprinting [42]. Typically, meat products are printed by extruding fibrous meat components through a nozzle to produce 3D structures. ...
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... There are also reservations about its actual environmental impact, the energy efficiency of the printing process and the thermomechanical performance of the printed structure (Perrot, 2019). Opportunities and constraints for 3DP (Cascone et al., 2020;Kazemian et al., 2022) Improving printability and structural performance (Chen et al., 2020) Offsite and onsite applications of 3DP (Jipa and Dillenburger, 2022) Compressive and flexural strength of the objects (Marcucci et al., 2022) Cost-effectiveness, productivity, and high design intricacy (Bao et al., 2022) Thermomechanical performance of objects (Tirth and Ghori, 2021) Technology readiness and prospects of 3DP (Ma et al., 2022) Optimizing printing parameters for high printing quality (Zhang and Sanjayan, 2023) Development of new materials and composites (Gauss and Pickering, 2023;Inayath Basha et al., 2023;Nilimaa, 2023) Environmental sustainability of 3DP (Almeida et al., 2021;Batikha et al., 2022;Garrett, 2014;Gebler et al., 2014;Hossain et al., 2020;Ibrahim et al., 2022;Kanyilmaz et al., 2022;Nilimaa, 2023;Perrot, 2019;Singh et al., 2021) A second area of research focusses on the materials used in construction 3DP. The rheology of the material must be suitable for extrusion and the printed structure must have appropriate strength, thermal insulation, and aesthetics. ...
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... Additive manufacturing (AM) is a fast-growing industry gaining popularity, attracting a broad range of applications over the past decade. As one of the main trends of the fourth industrial revolution, the industry has an enormous impact on the US and global innovation and economy [1]. Additive manufacturing of metals has proven to be a viable solution for many industries, including healthcare, aerospace, and defense, benefiting from the advantages of design freedom, part consolidation, lead time reduction, improved production efficiency as well as in-house production of urgently needed parts. ...
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Additive Manufacturing: Implications to the Army Organic Industrial Base in 2030
For further implications of 3DP for the military, see Drushal, J. R. (2013) 'Additive Manufacturing: Implications to the Army Organic Industrial Base in 2030.' Washington, DC: Atlantic Council.