Search

The benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) extend beyond the attributes of physical products and production processes they enable. Experience with AM can augment the way design is approached and can increase opportunities to pivot toward less familiar design tasks. We begin this qualitative study with a natural experiment made possible by an exogenous shock: the COVID‐19 pandemic. Through a three‐stage case study approach using a grounded theory‐building method, we contrast AM usage among a set of firms, half of which pivoted their resources away from their traditional production and toward a response to this shock. We engage in an abductive reasoning approach to consider common threads in AM capabilities that facilitated this pivoting. Our analyses suggest that the advanced use of generative design (GD), a category of computational technologies enabling novel and optimized design, is a critical attribute of these firms that ended up pivoting to make COVID‐related products. Specifically, firms with experience applying this capability demonstrated a unique ability to pivot during this shock and emphasized their valuation of AM‐enabled agility. We revisited these firms 2 years after initial contact and found that GD was associated with higher levels of innovation and was largely viewed by designers as a mechanism driving double‐loop learning. Overall, our study provides insights into the symbiosis between human and artificially intelligent GD, and the role of such symbiosis in advancing AM capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A chasm is growing between the advanced technologies available for improving manufacturing operations and those effectively used in practice. The vision of Industry 4.0 is to mobilize industry to seek out these possibilities for improvement and to close the gap between opportunity and reality. However, when compared with more established improvement opportunities such as lean manufacturing, the digitalization of manufacturing lacks in both paradigmatic examples and an understanding of how to achieve the benefits. This lack is a complication of concern: Without an appropriate operations strategy to capture the value of digitalization, manufacturing companies will be unable to focus on technological investments and operational changes. To address this concern, operations management academics must develop new theory through active engagement in the practice of digitalization in manufacturing. This research presents a paradigmatic example, based on engaged scholarship, focused on effectively combining novel object‐interactive and conventional manufacturing syntax for benefiting from digitalization in internal operations and the wider supply chain. The contribution to literature is a novel operations strategy—hybrid digital manufacturing—for capturing the value of Industry 4.0 technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a cost model for the additive manufacturing (AM)-produced spare parts supply chain in the automotive industry. Moreover, we evaluate the economic feasibility of AM for slow-moving automotive spare parts by comparing the costs of the traditional manufacturing (TM) spare parts supply chain (SPSC) with centralized, outsourced AM SPSC. Data from a multiple case study of an OEM in the automotive industry regarding SPSC is utilized. The supply chain costs of 14 individual spare parts were analyzed, and the total SPSC cost for the AM and TM, were compared. Three of the fourteen parts showed potential for cost-savings, if they were produced with AM instead of TM. In this context, AM polymer parts showed greater potential than metal to replace TM as the more economical option of manufacturing from a total supply chain cost perspective. This study shows that the AM competitiveness to TM, from a financial perspective, increases for spare parts with low demand, high minimum order quantity, and high TM production price. The SPSC cost model included: cost of production, transport, warehousing, and service costs. This study contributes to the emerging field of part identification for AM and the existing literature regarding cost modeling in SPSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the impact of cheaper metal powder supplies on the comparative competitiveness of additive manufacturing (AM). By utilising two case studies, we compare the economic impact of an innovative titanium extraction method on Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and conventional methods of machining and casting. A switch-over analysis identifies the production quantities above which conventional manufacturing is more cost competitive than additive manufacturing. This analysis is performed for current raw material as well as cheaper raw material supply. The results illustrate the improved comparative competitiveness of SLM as the titanium supply is commoditised and more readily available in powder form. The responsiveness of the supply chain is improved as the switch-over point between SLM and conventional methods increases. Moreover, as the raw material supply chain for titanium is transformed through the use of this novel extraction method, the manufacturing supply chain is simplified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]