1Department of Desalination and Water Treatment, Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede-Boqer Campus 84990, Israel 2Argonne National Laboratories, Energy Systems Division, 9700 S Cass Avenue, Lemont, IL 3Argonne National Laboratory, BioSciences Division, 9700 S Cass Avenue, Lemont, IL, University of Chica...

Foreword The concept of obsolescence in the industrial sector has many facets that can be summarised in the general definition provided by the International Institute for Obsolescence Management (IIOM): obsolescence is the unavailability of parts, or services, that were previously available (IIOM 2015). The need to understand, plan and mitigate obsolescence (i.e. obsolescence management) is par...

Future sensing applications will include high-performance features, such as toxin detection, real-time monitoring of physiological events, advanced diagnostics, and connected feedback. However, such multi-functional sensors require advancements in sensitivity, specificity, and throughput with the simultaneous delivery of multiple detection in a short time. Recent advances in 3D printing and ele...

We study a firm’s manufacturing strategy under two types of flexible production technologies: the traditional flexible technology and 3D printing. Under the traditional flexible technology, capacity becomes more expensive as it handles more product variants; under 3D printing, however, capacity cost is independent of the number of product variants processed. The firm adopts a dedicated technolo...

Additive manufacturing has spread widely over the past decade, especially with the availability of home 3D printers. In the future, many items may be manufactured at home, which raises two ethical issues. First, there are questions of safety. Our current safety regulations depend on centralized manufacturing assumptions; they will be difficult to enforce on this new model of manufacturing. Usin...

Introduction A novel technology often leads to some forms of disruptions that are a result of the average consumer applying new tools in their everyday lives (Lipson and Kurman 2013). The birth of additive manufacturing, commonly known as three-dimensional printing (3DP) technology, took place in 1984 and is finally bringing us to a time of the third industrial revolution (Barnatt 2013). In the...