An Environmental Impact Assessment of 3D Printed Medical Devices

Abstract

As the push to incorporate sustainable practices has found widespread adoption in the corporate world, much of the responsibility has fallen to those industries and companies that manufacture physical products. Stryker has set corporate-wide carbon neutral and 100% renewable energy goals requiring an adjustment of current processes and incorporating sustainability practices to processes in development. To that end, this thesis assesses the environmental impact of additive technologies at one of Stryker’s manufacturing facilities in the form of a numerical metric to give leadership a new way to incorporate environmental consequences into their decision-making. By mapping out the additive manufacturing processes at the company’s primary facility and incorporating a tool to model these processes, two main metrics were produced for three additive technologies versus traditional milling. First, the carbon footprint per part due to the raw material, production processes, and the consumed inputs was quantified. Second, the energy consumed using each manufacturing platform, from raw material extraction to finishing. In addition, a separate tool was developed to streamline the use of the model and increase adoption by the additive team. A case study was conducted using this tool on one of the company’s products and the results were compared to an external consultancy’s analysis. The discrepancies between the two analyses allow for future work in further customizing the tool’s parameters to mirror the specific conditions of the medical device facility.