Additive manufacturing impacts on a two-level supply chain

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a recent and rapidly developing technology, which has brought about significant disruptions in the manufacturing arena. To capture the full spectrum of changes resulting from AM's introduction into the industry, it is not sufficient to look at it just as a disruptive set of technologies but, rather, take a system's approach. It must be noted that the investigation of AM's impacts cannot be limited to an individual actor, but should encompass the whole supply chain to fully consider the relevant changes in strategic as well as tactical decision-making and operations. This paper presents an analytic approach based on Joint Economic Lot Sizing model, and aims at capturing the most significant impacts resulting from the implementation of the AM concept on a two-level supply chain. This assessment of AM from inventory and logistics standpoints is targeted at providing insights into how manufacturers could adapt their supply chains’ planning to accommodate new paradigms introduced by AM. A numerical example followed by sensitivity analysis of a real industrial case study is presented to provide evidence for the main findings and further generalise them.