Additive manufacturing and business models: Current knowledge and missing perspectives

Additive manufacturing, that is 3D printing technology, may change the way companies operate their businesses. This article adopts a business model perspective to create an understanding of what we know about these changes. It summarizes current knowledge on additive manufacturing within management and business research, and it discusses future research directions in relation to business models for additive manufacturing. Using the scientific database Web of Science, 116 journal articles were identified. The literature review reveals that most research concerns manufacturing optimization. A more holistic view of the changes that additive manufacturing may bring about for firms is needed, as is more research on changed value propositions, and customer/sales-related issues. The article contributes to previous research by systematically summarizing additive manufacturing research in the business and management literature, and by highlighting areas for further investigation related to the business models of individual firms

Rapid generation of uniform cellular structure by using prefabricated unit cells

Cellular structures are one of the effective ways to produce parts with higher resource efficiency by reducing material and time used. These complex structures can be built by using Additive Manufacturing (AM) which is hardly achievable by using traditional subtractive manufacturing. Cellular structures can be designed and modelled according to desired, specific properties. However, the modelling can be time and resource consuming, due to the complexity and the size of the structure. This article proposes a modelling technique for rapid generation of cellular structure. The method works based on a concept of a hybrid B-Rep and polygon approach. Prefabrication of unit cell kernels is introduced to shorten time in a populating phase, which results in a significant reduction of modelling time, especially for a structure with a large number of cells. The implementation of this method by using open-source library, Open Cascade Technology (OCCT) and Visualization Toolkits (VTK), is also presented