Environmental dimensions of additive manufacturing: mapping application domains and their environmental implications

Additive manufacturing (AM) proposes a novel paradigm for engineering design and manufacturing, which has profound economic, environmental, and security implications. The design freedom offered by this category of manufacturing processes and its ability to locally print almost each designable object will have important repercussions across society. While AM applications are progressing from rapid prototyping to the production of end-use products, the environmental dimensions and related impacts of these evolving manufacturing processes have yet to be extensively examined. Only limited quantitative data are available on how AM manufactured products compare to conventionally manufactured ones in terms of energy and material consumption, transportation costs, pollution and waste, health and safety issues, as well as other environmental impacts over their full lifetime. Reported research indicates that the specific energy of current AM systems is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude higher compared to that of conventional manufacturing processes. However, only part of the AM process taxonomy is yet documented in terms of its environmental performance, and most life cycle inventory (LCI) efforts mainly focus on energy consumption. From an environmental perspective, AM manufactured parts can be beneficial for very small batches, or in cases where AM-based redesigns offer substantial functional advantages during the product use phase (e.g., lightweight part designs and part remanufacturing). Important pending research questions include the LCI of AM feedstock production, supply-chain consequences, and health and safety issues relating to AM

Influencing process and cultural change in the aerospace industry

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69).Aerospace equipment manufacturers have expressed considerable frustration with the lack of success in implementing process and cultural change initiatives within their organizations. The objective of this report is to offer more successful methods of designing and executing change initiatives in the aerospace industry. This report provides an analysis of three particular change initiatives in execution at Pratt&Whitney Aircraft at the time of this writing. The successes and failures of three initiatives are analyzed and compared in the context of the major barriers to change faced by the industry. The arguments made in the discussion and in the following conclusions suggest that success depends on the application of entrepreneurial marketing and negotiations theories: 1. Solving a quantifiable, pressing source of pain for the customer 2. Results selling by providing a solution versus solely a technology 3. Focusing on a single customer with the budget and power to employ the new technology 4. Understanding the positions and interests of the parties involved 5. Establishing a bargaining range when faced with resistance 6. Enabling a give and take of concessions and tradeoffs in the bargaining process.by Adam B. Kohorn.S.M