Running Head: AM

Additive manufacturing impacts on logistics and supply chains

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Introduction

Additive manufacturing also called 3D printing is basically a disruptive invention, which

would have a vital impact on global procedures and supply chains. Manufacturers are challenged

with growing scrutiny as to their manufacturing procedures and goods purchasing transparency

and interruptions of global supply chain, which limits their ability to send products to meet their

consumer’s worldwide demand. Digital technologies, in these tough situations like internet of

things and additive manufacturing could play an important role (Calignano, 2023). This

assessment evaluates the strategic impacts of 3D printing (additive manufacturing) on logistics

and supply chains along with a case study.

Discussion

Additive manufacturing called 3D printing allows the components and parts fabrication

with complex surfaces, and it is also called freedom surfaces. AM techniques and processes

employ generally a bottom-up fabrication strategy, in which a design can be created using

techniques from a specific material expansion/description system called "layer by layer".

Organizations using additive manufacturing processes have experienced a high degree of agility

and adaptability in changing creation schedules, resulting in better utilization of natural

substances and assets, resulting in lower operating costs. Another element associated with AM is

the rapid exchange of items to the market. When assembling and planning products, time

reduction is a perspective required by serious customers who follow unstable display instructions

(Calignano, 2023).

AM makes the assembly of a complex product adaptable with low volumes, tight lead

times, tight creation costs and high added value. In general, AM is used to create small groups
and single elements. Altogether, this contributes to shortening the season for delivering goods to

end customers. Regarding the logistics and store network exercise, AM's proposals have not been

the subject of much research. Knight and Hannibal (2018) explore the potential impact of 3D

printing on global logistics and value chains from a global downstream and creation constraint

perspective (Velásquez, 2020).

Traditional approaches of SC could no longer allow managing trade-offs among

objectives of supply chain because of such new problems. At the similar time several objectives

could be met by using modern technology. And an emerging tool is Digital Manufacturing,

Rapid Manufacturing, Rapid Tooling, Rapid Prototyping, and Additive Manufacturing. AM

allows the lighter fabrication, more sophisticated designs, which will be prohibitively expensive

or impossible to make using machining techniques, milling, molds, and standard dies.

Another area is Rapid prototyping in which AM shines. AM enhances flexibility of supply chain,

eliminates material waste, and streamlines production procedures by enabling the end product to

be made close to end-user. Moreover, the cause that additional expenses is avoided by AM

associated generally with developing complex geometries is tied strongly to its ability to build

complex geometries easily as compared to traditional production procedures. Furthermore, recent

times have observed advancement in AM technology. Parts and components with AM are

becoming increasingly the space sector’s focus too, thanks to latest breakthroughs in

manufacturing capabilities and design optimization tools (Rogers, 2016).

AM main effects on the Global Supply Chains

The supply chain is shortens by additive manufacturing. Complex geometries could cast

assembly pieces or replace several conventionally machines pieced by using AM. AM services,
even in nations with high labor cost might be locally supplied at competitive costs. North

America and Europe today have many service providers of AM, enabling organizations to

regionally acquire AM services at reasonable costs as compared to Asian vendors. Furthermore,

the AM portable feature would enable companies to send their products and services to the local

consumers or marketplaces more quickly. There would be as a result a shift towards local work

locations more and shift away by mass fabrication in nations with low cost. Firms would be

capable of domestically manufacture components in spite of depending upon imports (Janssen,

2014).

3D printing technology is tool-free procedure gives producers with unequaled flexibility

to the personalized results to the customer’s individual needs and improve experience of

customers. This would cause flexible supply networks, which could adjust quickly to the market

changes. AM is cost-effective, energy efficient and environmentally friendly production

procedure. It lessen carbon footprint, surplus inventory, decreases excessive production danger

and produces nearly no waste (Janssen, 2014).

AM's main advantage is the reduction of logistics and transportation costs as production

can take place in ecosystems outside the company's boundaries, allowing products to be

manufactured closer to consumers and end users. Laplume (2016) and Campbell (2011) suggest

that additive manufacturing could impact the role of companies in managing international value

chains and enable small-scale, high-volume production locally with minimal set-up and re-

processing costs, thereby shortening supply chains and reducing logistics activity. Using AM

technologies the production localization enables to make customized products with the flexibility

of design at suitable price, under environmental conservation requirements and consider the

consumer possibility to customize/ modify the end product according to their requirements.

Zucchella and Strange (2017) suggest that AM technologies potentials on logistics and supply

chain is related probably to the AM coupling with other “technological advances” like industry

4.0 (Chan, 2018).

AM in supply chain of spare parts: Case study

Several experts highlighted additional details about the spacecraft, focusing on the flight area.

This industry is an example of how important repair speed is to creating greater value for

customers. Thus, rapid patch and support management requires greater availability of additional

components, which improves SC performance. In any case, it is practically impossible for the

carrier to stock all the important parts; for example, imagine a large Boeing or Airbus

commercial aircraft consisting of 4 million parts (Kubacz, 2017). Using traditional creation

procedures can cause various frustrations for organizations in this area. To clarify the basic issue,
spare parts (and therefore aircraft parts) need to be divided into two categories: standard and

non-standard. In the first case, interest can be assessed and a plan can be made, since periodic

replacement may be required as part of the support plan. However, most parts are rarely used and

are called spare parts, that is, parts that are usually less loaded. The need to provide this imposes

significant costs on organizations, both in terms of obsolescence and capital investment. As a

rule, storage and operation costs exceed creation costs (Kubach, 2017). Surprising interest and

high costs have led scientists and organizations to turn to additive manufacturing as a solution to

the defect problem. Using centralized additive manufacturing instead of distribution centers can

reduce the need to track welfare inventory. In particular, things can be divided into three groups:

A, B and C. The first group, fast (recently called standard), covers about 80% of transactions and

covers only a small part of the costs of warehouse management (Mohr, 2015). Rest and C

increase inventory management costs but do not improve organizational productivity: B parts

cover half of the items and capture 15% of transactions, while C parts represent 30% of

inventory items and account for only 5% of transactions. AM's familiarity with the production of

slow-moving items reduces the high costs of distribution centers and finances the strategy by

providing the advantage of fast parts. Generally, manufacturers can continue to supply standard

parts using traditional methods of shipping them to a single warehouse, while also using

integrated additive manufacturing to produce lesser-mentioned parts. This protocol can both

reduce inventory levels and fully utilize the production capacity of additive manufacturing

machines (Laplume, 2016).

However, centralized additive manufacturing does not solve the problem of transportation time

and cost; if you need support in a remote location on short notice, the main option currently

available is to set up a decentralized warehouse on site. Another approach is to use a dedicated

AM. The area in which the plant is located influences the structure of the OC, as well as the

financial aspects of the organization, including delivery times, management levels, and

productivity (Kubacz, 2017).

Implications of Additive manufacturing on Logistics and Supply Chain

The main implications of 3D printing on logistics and SC as part of production and

technological advances in such areas are outlines below:

SC complexity reduction: decreasing complexity in chain is because of increased ability

to make parts in single-complete unit decreasing the requirement to assemble several parts.

Consequently this reduces the stock replacement part’s need provided the low raw material

quantity required to make a product. Also it decreases the internal production costs, work

activities amount, enables better materials control and shorten the flow of production process

(Laplume, 2016).

Legal and safety aspects: provided the capability of such technologies to develop many

kinds of products, there is a requirement to control and guarantee the non-falsification and

production of products, which can harm humans, for instance knives, guns, etc. The rapid and

extensive exchange of records, including actually inspected items, requires legal oversight, as the

current legal system for 3D printing does not include plans for the specific inspection of real

items (Corsini, 2022).

Maintainability and performance of assets: With respect to the capacity of assets to

achieve reasonable degrees of environmental creation and manageability, the perception of

natural principles and waste associated with guidelines is proposed. The Am process, in terms of

energy usage, generally has less impact than traditional assembly methods such as machining,
machining, etc. Furthermore, reconfiguring more collaborative and tighter value chains means

enabling longer product lifespans through specialized systems such as restoration, restoration and

repair, ensuring closer relationships between buyers and producers and manageable financial

examples (Velázquez, 2020).

Plan for the creation of rapid and efficient prototypes: AM, associated with innovations

in the field of correspondence and data, as well as other modalities such as the network of things,

big information, Internet 2.0, industry 4.0, etc., announces the beginning of a new period in

global creativity through the digitalization of products. The innovation of 3D printing is so

versatile that it allows you to create a large number of different objects quickly and easily. End

customers, as a model of the future, will participate in the creation of products according to their

own desires (Delic, 2020).

Adaptive inventory management and logistics management: Additive manufacturing can

impact an organization's global value chain planning efforts and can foster the creation of large

businesses locally with low costs associated with returns and customization. This model of

creating or closing an end-use location reduces the volume of logistics transportation operations

and their associated costs. Furthermore, this leads to an improved pattern of replacing inventories

of natural substances and real objects with “computerized inventories” in the structure of “3D .stl

records”. Some natural substances require less talented labor to break even, so inventory holding

costs are drastically reduced (Holmström, 2017).

Conclusion

AM techniques and processes employ generally a bottom-up fabrication strategy, in

which a structure could be fabricated by ways of selective material addition/ deposition

procedure called layer-by-layer. The high customized product’s manufacturing is made flexible

by AM with low volume in competitive time, and with competitive production costs and high-

added value. AM enhances flexibility of supply chain, eliminates material waste, and streamlines

production procedures by enabling the end product to be made close to end-user.The rate at

which 3D printing is changing makes design case or establishing business comparisons among

AM and more developed techniques is hard. And it is not accurate now to categorize AM as

single strategy. A wide range of different techniques has developed, specifically in domain of

metal, that all fall below the “additive umbrella”. While for manufacturing 3D printing is not

fully mature yet, logistics and general managers must keep a focus on developments in this field,

specifically the impediments removal to AM adoption. They show major competitive benefit

because of ability of AM techniques to extremely well adapt to customization of product design

and geometrical complexity of product to be made. This could be utilized by industries to reduce

cost and optimize production.

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