A Distribution Network Design Model for Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

It is without a doubt that Additive Manufacturing (AM) is to radically change the way manufacturing processes take place. However, the vast majority of the extant literature deals with rather futuristic scenarios on the subject. This paper adopts a more realistic, short-term perspective by stating that new supply chain models have to be designed in a way adopting AM, but they should still incorporate Conventional Manufacturing (CM) as the de-facto means at least for a certain period. To this end, we formulate a new supply chain model where manufacturers are allowed to forward their orders to 3D shops. With some mild assumptions, our optimization model suggests that substantial cost savings could be attained when AM is adopted.