We present a review on Additive Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 from business innovation and sustainability perspective.
1. Introduction
The research trend in additive manufacturing (AM)/3D printing/rapid prototyping has evolved over the past 30 years from a rapid prototyping technology to advanced manufacturing. According to Mohsen [
1], the third industrial revolution started in 1987 with the commercialization of the first stereolithography (SLA) machine, named SLA-1, developed by 3D Systems. After several commercialized versions of SLA machines in 1991, three new AM-based technologies were commercialized: fused deposition modeling (FDM), solid ground curing, and laminated object manufacturing (LOM). This was followed by several years of sustained development in the AM technology from using resin to metal powder and from non-functional molding applications to fabricating medical implants [
2]. At present, the focus is on the implementation of this technology in the manufacturing environment [
3], considering business/operations cost implications [
1,
4,
5,
6,
7], design for manufacturing or design optimization [
8], and the sustainable development of this technology considering environmental implications such as the product life cycle, circular economy (CE), and use of recycled materials [
9,
10,
11]. Few studies have reviewed the business innovation (BI) and sustainable development of the AM technology separately [
12,
13,
14,
15,
16]. Industry 4.0 technologies facilitate decision making using real-time data [
17,
18], but others give more importance to how effective Industry 4.0 data are for environmentally sustainable implications [
19,
20]. Therefore, a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis of the AM business model and sustainability areas are needed to consider the integration of these developments into Industry 4.0.
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/met10081061