Additive manufacturing—also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing—has the potential to fundamentally change the production and distribution of goods. Unlike conventional or subtractive manufacturing processes, such as drilling, which create a part by cutting away material, additive manufacturing builds a part using a layer-by-layer process. Additive manufacturing has been used as a design and prototyping tool, but the focus of additive manufacturing is now shifting to the direct production of functional parts—parts that accomplish one or more functions, such as medical implants or aircraft engine parts—that are ready for distribution and sale.
Support from federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD), was instrumental in the early research and development into additive manufacturing. According to the Science and Technology Policy Institute, since 1986 when it first began funding additive manufacturing, NSF has expended more than $200 million on additive manufacturing research and related activities.
Now, several federal agencies are involved with the research and development of additive manufacturing, including NSF, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NIST, DOD, and the Department of Energy. Within DOD, several research organizations are involved, including the research laboratories of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
These federal agencies support research at federal laboratories, academic institutions, and small and large companies, sponsor technical conferences, and participate in standards development. To help guide research and development efforts, federal research and development agencies have supported the development of several technology roadmaps. Further, in August 2012, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, also known as America Makes, was founded as a public-private partnership to accelerate the research, development, and demonstration of additive manufacturing and transition technology to the manufacturing industry in the United States. Its federal partners include the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, and Energy, NASA, and NSF. America Makes is part of a broader National Network for Manufacturing Innovation that is designed to stimulate advanced manufacturing technologies and accelerate their commercialization in the United States. The interagency Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office manages the network and includes participation from all federal agencies involved in U.S. manufacturing. It is designed to enable more effective collaboration in identifying and addressing manufacturing challenges and opportunities that span technology areas and cut across agency missions.
On October 15-16, 2014, the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO), with the assistance of the National Academies, convened a forum to discuss the use of additive manufacturing to directly produce functional parts, including its opportunities, (2) key challenges, and (3) key considerations for any policy actions that could affect its future use. Forum participants included officials from government, business, academia, and nongovernmental organizations that were selected to represent a range of viewpoints and backgrounds.
Forum participants identified many opportunities for using additive manufacturing to produce functional parts and discussed benefits that have been realized in the medical, aerospace, and defense sectors. For example, they said that the medical industry is using additive manufacturing to produce customized prosthetics and implants, including cranial implants. Because it is made specifically for a patient, the part results in a better fit, which leads to a better medical outcome. In the aerospace industry, participants said additive manufacturing was used to design and produce a complex jet engine fuel nozzle as a single part, which will reduce assembly time and costs for the engine. Participants identified some future applications of additive manufacturing including enhancing supply chain management. Overall, participants concluded that additive manufacturing will not replace conventional manufacturing, but rather it will be an additional tool for manufacturers to use when it is appropriate from a cost-benefit perspective.
Forum participants identified three broad groups of challenges in using additive manufacturing to produce functional parts: (1) ensuring product quality, (2) limited design tools and workforce skills, and (3) supporting increased production of functional parts. First, they identified challenges related to building quality parts, such as the need to improve the quality control of the additive manufacturing process. Second, they said that existing design and analytical tools combined with an insufficiently skilled workforce could limit the use of additive manufacturing and its ability to reach its potential for greater innovation. Finally, participants identified challenges that affect the increased production of functional parts, such as the need for an improved industrial infrastructure, including more robust supply chains of machines and materials.
Forum participants identified key considerations for potential federal policy actions that could affect the future use of additive manufacturing, including industry challenges, areas affected by additive manufacturing growth, and tradeoffs. Although there was no consensus on specific policy actions needed and many participants suggested caution on potential government action, participants discussed several areas of potential government involvement, such as coordinating standards setting, considering risks for infringement of intellectual property rights with regard to additive manufacturing products, and encouraging a national dialogue about the government's role and its goals.
Additive manufacturing is a layer-by-layer process of producing 3D objects directly from a digital model unlike conventional or subtractive manufacturing processes, such as drilling or milling, which create a part or product by cutting away material from a larger piece, additive manufacturing builds a finished piece in successive layers, generally without the use of molds, casts, or patterns, which can potentially lead to less waste material in the manufacturing process.
While the concepts have existed for decades, commercialization of additive manufacturing began in the mid-1980s and its first uses were primarily for presentation purposes. For more than 20 years, the technology has been evolving as a design and prototyping tool. Additive manufacturing offers the ability to rapidly create prototypes that can help validate the fit, form, and functionality of proposed products, which has provided both great time and cost savings in the product development cycle. As the technology has matured, the use of additive manufacturing has become more widespread and has expanded into more applications. For instance, one of the significant applications for additive manufacturing has been the production of tools and casts for conventional manufacturing. Lower manufacturing tool costs have allowed manufacturers to produce in lower volumes that previously may not have been cost-beneficial.
The use of additive manufacturing for prototyping and manufacturing tooling has helped to improve the efficiencies of conventional manufacturing processes, and the use of additive manufacturing is now shifting to the direct production of goods that are ready for distribution and sale. The emergence of desktop equipment for additive manufacturing has enabled the production of jewelry, art replicas, toys, models, and other artistic products. However, it is the potential to use additive manufacturing to produce functional parts and products, particularly in critical applications such as medicine and aerospace, that has generated a lot of attention
(Link: http://gao.gov/products/GAO-15-505SP)