Additive Manufacturing as a Manufacturing Method: an Implementation Framework for Additive Manufacturing in Supply Chains

The supply chain is changing speedily and on a continuous basis to keep up with the rapid changes in the market, which are summarized as increased competition, changes in traditional customer bases, and changes in customers’ expectations. Thus, companies have to change their way of manufacturing final products in order to customize and expedite the delivery of products to customers. Additive manufacturing, the new production system, effectively and efficiently increases the capability of personalization during the manufacturing process. This consequently increases customer’s satisfaction and company’s profitability. In other words, additive manufacturing has become one of the most important technologies in the manufacturing field. Full implementation of additive manufacturing will change many well-known management practices in the production sector. Theoretical development in the field of additive manufacturing in regards to its impact on supply chain management is rare. There is no fully applied approach in the literature that is focused on managing the supply chain when additive manufacturing is applied. While additive manufacturing is believed to revolutionize and enhance traditional manufacturing, there is no comprehensive toolset developed in the manufacturing field that evaluates the impact of additive manufacturing and determines the best production method that suits the applied supply chain strategy. A significant portion of the existing supply chain methods and frameworks were adopted in this study to examine the implementation of additive manufacturing in supply chain management. The aim of this study is to develop a framework to explain when additive manufacturing “3D printing” impacts supply chain management efficiently. To build the framework, interviews with some companies that already use additive manufacturing in their production system have been carried out. Next, an online survey and two case studies evaluated the framework and validated the results of the final version of the framework. The conceptual framework shows the relationship among supply chain strategies, manufacturing strategy and manufacturing systems. The developed framework shows not only the ability of additive manufacturing to change and re-shape supply chains, but its impact as an alternative manufacturing technique on supply chain strategies. This framework helps managers select more effective production methods based on certain production variables, including product’s type, components’ value, and customization level.