TY  - JOUR
TI  - How will the diffusion of additive manufacturing impact the raw material supply chain process?
AB  - This study investigates the potential of additive manufacturing (i.e. 3D printing) to alter established manufacturing and sup-ply chain processes, complementing previous research work that deals with additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping.Additive manufacturing is a manufacturing technique, which allows the direct fabrication of three-dimensional design mod-els using an additive approach by adding layer after layer. As additive manufacturing is inherently less wasteful and onlyapplies raw material where needed, it constitutes a chance to reduce materials usage and related inventories. Even thoughthe technology has faced considerable hype, its adoption still does not match the high expectations. The aim of this study isto overcome limitations of state-of-the-art impact assessments by integrating the potential reduction of materials inventoriesthrough the adoption of additive manufacturing in manufacturing and to point out possible implications for supply chainprocesses. For this purpose, a dynamic evaluation model was developed analysing the adoption of additive manufactur-ing by integrating the Bass Diffusion Model to provide interesting and novel results for both practitioners and researchers.The study shows that additive manufacturing can indeed reduce raw materials inventory by approximately 4% and that thediffusion rate is likely to be affected by the utility of the technology.
DO  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2019.1661537
SP  - 1540
EP  - 1554
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2019.1661537
PY  - 2020-01-01
JO  - International Journal of Production Research
AU  - Kunovjanek, Maximilian 
AU  - Reiner, Gerald 
ER -