Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing introduces a novel production method in design, manufacturing, and distribution to end-users. This technology provides great freedom in design for creating complex components, highly customizable products, and efficient waste minimization.
Thanks to its numerous benefits, such as time and material saving, rapid prototyping, high efficiency, and decentralized production methods, AM plays a principal role in industry 4.0 that employs the integration of smart manufacturing systems and developed information technologies.
The additive manufacturing technique was first employed by Charles Hull for the stereolithography (SLA) process in 1986. However, over three decades, many other printing methods were discovered and several improvements, transforming the manufacturing and logistics processes. This encouraged the market for more investments in various industries, such as biomedical, aerospace, and automotive.
Notably, there is a significant growth in the investment in AM technology from $4 billion in 2014 to over $21 billion by 2020. AM benefits attract much attention in manufacturing, such as mass-customized production, prototyping, sustainable production, and minimized lead time and cost.
Top research papers on Additive Manufacturing
1. Additive Manufacturing (AM) at Industry 4.0: A Review by Diogo José Horst (2018) – This paper presents the fundamental principles of 3D printing, its roles in industry 4.0 in saving time and cost, and the benefits, e.g., higher flexibility and individualization.
2. Additive manufacturing (3D printing): A review of materials, methods, applications, and challenges by Tuan D. Ngo (2018) – This paper covers the main advantage of additive manufacturing in fast prototyping and its capabilities for producing complex structures, mass customization, freedom of design, and waste minimization. It also explains the industrial revolution of additive manufacturing in aerospace, biomedical, building, and protective structures and the fast transition from conventional machining and traditional methods.
3. Methods and Materials for Smart Manufacturing: Additive Manufacturing, Internet of Things, Flexible Sensors and Soft Robotics by Arkadeep Kumar (2018) – The paper presents various additive manufacturing applications for factories in the future. It also talks about industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing systems using 3D printing and developing and innovation in manufacturing methods and material using additive manufacturing.
4. Advanced Material Strategies for Next-Generation Additive Manufacturing by Jinke Chang (2018) – This paper talks about the application of AM in various fields and industrial productions, e.g., microelectronic and biomedical devices. It also introduces the novel additive manufacturing process for multiple materials, including smart materials, biomaterials, and conductive materials.
5. Additive Manufacturing, Cloud-Based 3D Printing, and Associated Services—Overview by Felix W. Baumann (2017) – This covers the application of Cloud Manufacturing (CM) in the concept of a service-oriented approach over the internet and the historical development in the field of CM and AM in the smart manufacturing process between 2002 to 2006.
6. The role of additive manufacturing in the era of Industry 4.0 by Ugur M Dilberoglu (2017) – This paper covers the recent development of the additive manufacturing process, the benefits of additive manufacturing in design improvement, and industry 4.0. and the current technological methods and highlights in the additive manufacturing process.
7. Smart manufacturing: Characteristics, technologies, and enabling factors by Sameer Mittal (2017) – This paper reviews all published works on various applied technologies and processes related to the smart manufacturing topic and a comprehensive list of the influential factors associated with smart manufacturing and industry 4.0.
8. The rise of 3-D printing: The advantages of additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing by Mohsen Attaran (2017) – This presents the future of additive manufacturing and identifying the challenges, technologies, and trends, the benefits of additive manufacturing compared with conventional machining and discuss its influence on the supply chain process and the potential of additive manufacturing and impact on the various industry.
9. Industrial Additive Manufacturing: A manufacturing systems perspective by Daniel R. Eyers (2017) – This paper covers the current applications of the additive manufacturing process in the industry, various methods including mechanisms, controls, and activities, and the development in industrial applications and the potentials and opportunities to improve the future of manufacturing.
10. Industrie 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing A Review of Research Issues and Application Examples by Klaus-Dieter Thoben (2017) – This paper presents an overview of smart manufacturing in industry 4.0. It also identifies the current and the future states of technology, besides offering an analysis of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and investigating the potential and applications of this system in production, design, and maintenance processes.
11. Material issues in additive manufacturing: A review by Sunpreet Singh (2017) – This paper presents a review of the biomedical applications of the additive manufacturing process, an introduction to Additive Bio-Manufacturing (ABM) technique for having a safer production, and review the helpful papers on this topic.
12. The evolution and future of manufacturing: A review by Behzad Esmaeilian (2016) – This explores a study of the manufacturing systems and all published works on this topic and the future of manufacturing processes focusing on design development sustainability issues as people, profit, planet.
13. Smart Manufacturing: Past Research, Present Findings, and Future Directions by Hyoung Seok Kang (2016) – This paper analyzes smart manufacturing in the past, current applications, and future by investigating various research papers. It also examines a new paradigm of Information and communications technology (ICT) and manufacturing technologies in industrial revolution 4.0 or smart manufacturing.
14. Additive manufacturing management: a review and future research agenda by Mojtaba khorram (2016) – This covers the multidimensional, systematic, and quantitative analysis to discover the structure of the additive manufacturing process in various scopes, including management, economic, and business. It also investigates the eight principle spectra of the research, including the additive manufacturing process, supply chain management, production design and cost model, strategies challenges, manufacturing systems, sustainability, innovation, and business model.
15. Current Standards Landscape for Smart Manufacturing Systems by Yan Lu (2016) – This report reviews the body of relevant standards upon which future smart manufacturing systems will rely. This report allows manufacturing practitioners to better understand those standards applicable to integrating smart manufacturing technologies. The report concludes that existing manufacturing standards are insufficient to fully enable smart manufacturing, especially in cybersecurity, cloud-based manufacturing services, supply chain integration, and data analytics.
16. Opportunities for Sustainable Manufacturing in Industry 4.0 by Tim Stock (2016) – This presents various sustainability issues in smart manufacturing industry 4.0 and development in sustainable manufacturing and provides solutions in the manufacturing processes.
17. Additive manufacturing and sustainability: an exploratory study of the advantages and challenges by Simon Ford (2016) – This paper covers an overview of advanced manufacturing processes and technologies such as additive manufacturing process, and benefits and challenges of the additive manufacturing process on sustainability issues in terms of business model, value chains, and innovation.
18. The status, challenges, and future of additive manufacturing in engineering by Wei Gao (2015) – This paper shares comprehensive knowledge of the additive manufacturing process, current challenges, achievements and the trend of the future, and the potential of the additive manufacturing process to achieve “print-it-all” image as the primary goal of the AM process shortly.
