Direct digital manufacturing: definition, evolution, and sustainability implications

One of the hot topics currently in manufacturing domain is direct digital manufacturing. With introduction of cheap three-dimensional printers, the direct digital manufacturing seems to become a new manufacturing paradigm with an entirely different impact on society; nevertheless how this will impact the society and the differences between the paradigms are unclear. According to this background, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of direct digital manufacturing from different perspectives in comparison to various traditional manufacturing paradigms. Authors are using a societal viewpoint to see, describe and analyse the subject instead of traditional manufacturing viewpoint. For the better understanding of direct digital manufacturing origins, a classification and historical background about available techniques are described. Furthermore, direct digital manufacturing as a paradigm is analysed and compared with craft production, mass production and mass customisation. Direct digital manufacturing's sustainability aspects related to social, economical and environmental dimensions are gathered and analysed for a better insight of this technique. A detailed case study demonstrates the energy use differences of direct digital manufacturing and mass production in depth. According to the present work, direct digital manufacturing has the possibility of combining the advantages of the other production paradigms and can have a positive impact on sustainable development; yet, there are several challenges to overcome both in technical and sociality aspects. A challenge within the social aspects can be the life style changes which can impact the job market, working environment, waste management and more.