Additive Manufacturing Supply Chain: Modeling and Performance Evaluation

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a recent and rapidly developing disruptive paradigm in the manufacturing environment. One of the main contexts which has come under great scrutiny is the relevant position of AM compared with traditional/conventional technologies in meeting manufacturer’s requirements. This context includes not only operations management, but also the configuration of the supply chain. In order to capture the spectrum of changes resulting from AM and investigate all the relevant aspects surrounding its implementation practices, it is necessary to look at it beyond just a disruptive set of technologies and rather, have a system’s approach. It must be noted that studying impacts of AM is not limited to just one single actor, but rather analysis of the significant impacts on the whole supply chain in terms of strategy and operations. This paper presents a Joint Economic Lot Size (JELS) analytic model aimed at capturing the impact of AM within the supply chain. The traditional configuration of supply chain and the AM supply chain have been modelled using the same parameters so as to capture the main differences from the operational point of view. This assessment of AM from an inventory and logistics point of view is targeted at providing a relevant insight into how companies could adapt their supply chain as well as manufacturing planning according to the new paradigms introduced by AM. Additionally some managerial insights are discussed to further build upon the numerical results and provide alternative course of actions for managers to take to be more conscious in their decision making regarding centralized and decentralized manufacturing