Environmental Advantages in Additive Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology that uses a variety of methods to ultimately apply layers of material and create products (Ford & Despeisse, 2016; Ford, Mortara & Minshall, 2016). Although there has been an expansion in recent technology, AM has been used in manufacturing for a few decades (Ford, Mortara, et al., 2016). Since the late 1980s, AM has grown from simple product designs, with a focus on prototyping and customization, to modern times with billions of dollars in revenue and large-scale production of consumer and industrial products (Cotteleer, 2014). Forecasts showed a near $10 billion market by 2020, with automotive, aerospace and medical industries leading the way (Cotteleer, 2014).