3d Printing

Table of contents

1. - Introduction

2. - Definitions

2.1. - Supply Chain Management

2.2. - 3D Printing

3. - Types of 3D printing

4. - 3D printing and its impacts in several industries

5. - Impacts

5.1. - Positive Impacts

5.2. - Negative Impacts and limitations

6. - Conclusion

7. - Reference List

8. - Appendix

1. Introduction

Today with globalization Supply Chain Management has become an important topic for almost every business in order to remain competitive, so supply chain ecosystems have to constantly adapt to the ecosystem and implement technological developments. The main reasons for this trend is to reduce costs, increase efficiency, control the risks at purchasing, increase output and to increase profits. From a costumer point of view the benefits are increased efficiency, reliability, flexibility and innovation. But is this all about to change with the new technology? Will 3D printing put an end to the globalized supply chain? Or what will the impacts be? (Miller, 2015)

2. Definitions

2.1 Supply Chain Management

The term supply chain management (SCM) became public when the consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, Keith Oliver used it in an interview with the Financial Times in 1982 and in the end of the 1990s the term had became popular and it was used with regularity. There is a lot of ambiguity on how to define the SCM so here it will be refer as SCM as the co-ordination of the activities involved in transporting a product and its ancillary services (installation, maintenance and repair) starting from the supplier to the ultimate costumer. It’s the network of activities that make it possible to deliver a finished good or service to the costumer, some definitions may considers only products and not services. (Jacoby, 2009)

Also it is important to say that SCM excludes the initial manufacturing of conversion activity so activities like extraction and farming are not SCM activities. Likewise the term is usually mistaken with logistics...