Greenhouse Gas Emission Analysis of Integrated Production-Inventory-Transportation Supply Chain Enabled by Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM), owing to its unique layer-wise production method, can offer evident advantages such as faster production, lower cost, and less waste compared to traditional manufacturing (TM) technologies. The uses of AM in rapid tooling, prototyping, and manufacturing have been innovating the current manufacturing industry from the process level to the entire supply chain. Most existing research on AM is focused on process improvement and new materials, largely neglecting the potential economic and environmental benefits enabled by AM supply chains. This research investigates an innovative supply chain structure, i.e., the integrated production-inventory-transportation (PIT) structure that is uniquely enabled by AM because of its capability of fabricating the entire product with less or even no need for assembly and labor involvement. This paper quantifies and compares the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of TM and AM-enabled PIT supply chains. Since the manufacturing industry is a major source of GHG emissions in the U.S., it needs to be thoroughly studied to explore opportunities for reducing GHG emissions for environmental protection. Case study results suggest that a potential reduction of 26.43% of GHG emissions can be achieved by adopting the AM-enabled PIT supply chain structure. Sensitivity analysis results show that a 20% variation in GHG emission intensity (the amount of CO2eq emissions caused by generating a unit of electricity) can lead to a 6.26% change in the total GHG emissions from the AM-enabled PIT supply chain.