Assessment framework for additive manufacturing in the AEC industry

Additive manufacturing (AM), popularly known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, is starting to coexist with conventional manufacturing (CM) in architecture-engineering-construction (AEC) industry. However, AEC practitioners do not have validated systematic means to rapidly and consistently assess AM for the production of building components through transparent metrics such as cost and environmental impact. We developed a semiautomated assessment framework to rapidly and consistently evaluate the applicability (A), schedule (S), environmental impact (E), and cost (C) of AM compared with CM to produce building components. The validation of the framework showed that it reduced the effort required for the ASEC analyses, specifically the time for the assessment by 97%, and provided consistent A, S, and C results in comparison with the assessment without the framework. The consistency of the E results was improved fourfold. An uncertainty source analysis of the E results showed the reduction of inconsistencies by 68% in the formalized assessment and proposed mitigations. Future work includes framework's further automation such as development of direct links to design and life cycle assessment (LCA) tools.