Assessment of Sustainable Additive Manufacturing Drivers: A MCDM Approach

Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology has emerged as a game changer for manufacturing organizations. In comparison to conventional manufacturing technologies, AM is sustainable and its sustainability advantages are visible in the present scenario. Manufacturing organizations consider the sustainability criteria with all its pillars as economic, environmental, and social factors in their decision-making. The current work aims to rank the sustainability drivers for AM. In this regard, 16 sustainability drivers regarding AM have been identified from the literature and analyzed using Best Worst Method (BWM). The most important and worst driver data and their pairwise comparison have been collected through expert’s opinion. Further, the weight and rank of each driver have been computed using BWM. The study identified the three top-weighted drivers in each aspect of sustainability as design flexibility, less carbon and greenhouse gas emission, and reduced health risks and occupational hazards. The consistency ratio has also been calculated to check the reliability level of the obtained result.