IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 86

and consumer areas alike. AM enables innovative
designs that were impossible to manufacture in a
single piece or at all. AM liberates conventional design
constraints that were posed by traditional ways of
manufacturing. The traditional school of design and
the realization thereof is supplemented by the possibilities that AM offers. It opens ways for improving
upon the quality of objects. This emphasizes the
importance of introducing a new way of thinking in
relation to design, both from an educational and business perspective, to reap the advantages of additive
manufacturing objects.
This digitization of manufacturing also has implications from a legal standpoint as adoption progresses.
The current laws and regulations pertaining to protecting intellectual property will be challenged with the
growing quantity of digital designs. In addition, implications in the legal domain are not limited to infringement
but also comprise liability concerns.
Moreover, there are many variables that influence the
current quality of an AM object, such as: the printer, the
material, the design, post processing and the environment in which it is printed, making the repeatability and
consistency of an AM object a topic of attention when it
comes to quality assurance.
In addition, maturing AM technology ignites strategic
discussions on economic aspects such as production,
distribution and the consumption of goods. As discussed, AM allows for on-demand and in-situ production which allows for rethinking the status quo with
regard to these economic aspects. In relation to this are
the environmental and health implications of, e.g., operating machines and the printing material.
In many respects the revolutionary character of this
technology resembles the onset of  factory automation
in the 20th century, setting the agenda for a wide range
of socio-technical topics for further research.

AM Challenges Current Skills and Knowledge
It is evident from this review that AM challenges current
skills and knowledge regarding design, production, distribution, and consumption.
This article presented the current applications of additive manufacturing derived from currently available literature. The applications identified might expand or contract
over time as the technology develops and new materials
become available. It is important to note that while the referenced papers have clearly identified benefits to the use
of additive manufacturing, there are potential downsides
that need to be investigated. There has been much speculation about how AM will affect supply and demand, and
more generally the overall economic impact it will have
upon society. These are important sociotechnical issues
that for the larger part were ignored in the literature.

86

Author Information
N.J.R. Venekamp and H.Th. Le Fever are with LIACS
Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Email: n.j.r.venekamp@umail.
leidenuniv.nl and h.t.le.fever@umail.leidenuniv.nl.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015
