The impact of Additive Manufacturing on Supply Chain design: a simulation study

Additive Manufacturing is a production technology, which completely differs from the traditional subtractive approach. Because its different nature, its application could cause strong changes in supply chains and it could affect the relationship between the supply chain players. This paper proposes a quantitative evaluation of the Additive Manufacturing effects on the supply chain performance, considering different system configurations. A simulation model has been implemented in order to reproduce the behavior of the players and compare different scenarios. Both additive and traditional technologies have been modelled in order to compare their efficiency. Moreover, different supply chain configurations have been tested to assess the additive production feasibility combined with different supply chain structures. Results confirm that Additive Manufacturing provides good improvements in supply chain performances offering significant benefits in the decentralized solution.