3D printing

Sudheer Gadde – 16BSP2589 | Information System for Managers | September 19, 2016
Printing

Acknowledgement
"I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the
kind support and help of many individuals and organizations. I would like to extend my sincere
thanks to all of them. I am highly indebted to (IBS BUSINESS SCHOOL) for their guidance and
constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project &
also for their support in completing the project. I would like to express my gratitude towards
my parents & member of (IBS BUSINESS SCHOOL) for their kind co-operation and
encouragement which help me in completion of this project. I would like to express my special
gratitude and thanks to persons for giving me such attention and time.
My thanks and appreciations also go to my friends in developing the report and people who
have willingly helped me out with their abilities."
Sudheer Gadde

The Birth of 3D Printing
This talk is an engineer's view of the third industrial revolution. There are many views
about what that revolution is, if it is a revolution at all. A lot of these views come from
philosophy or from economics. There have been many articles in publications like the
Economist, so something's going on there. But an engineer's focus is normally on things
that can realistically be done, not on economic theory or philosophy. Inventive,
innovative, and entrepreneurial engineers can push the envelope just a little bit further,
which makes the future impossible to predict. But breakthrough innovations can help to
create the future, and that's the topic of this talk. 3D printing has become a cornerstone of
some conceptions of the third industrial revolution, but it didn't start that way. Here's
how it started: One evening in 1983, I called my wife and I told her, "Get on down to the
lab right away." That didn't seem like a good idea to her; she already had her pajamas on
and she was going to go to bed to watch TV. But I insisted, so she got in the car and drove
down to the lab. While she was driving, she was thinking, "This had better be good." It
was. When she walked into the lab, I said, "I did it"—and I handed her the very first 3D-
printed part, a small cup. That printed cup was the moment when 3D printing first
happened, but how did I get to that point?
By 1980, I had been working at large companies for 19 years, first at Bell & Howell
Research, and then at DuPont, as an engineer in industrial R&D and product
development. I was in the analytical world, working on continuous innovations,
inventions, and new technology in analytical equipment for chemists. But breakthrough
ideas are not generally supported by large companies or research organizations, at least
not mine—especially if they're in a field that's outside the core business. I had over the
years tried different several new ideas on my employers and never gotten very far.
I felt I had a talent for invention that I couldn't exercise in a large company environment,
so I decided to leave for a smaller company, where I thought I'd have more influence on
the technology direction. I also decided at that time to learn more about
entrepreneurship. I'd had lots of management training but no training in starting new
ventures.
So in 1980 I went to a new position at a small ultraviolet technology company. Maybe a
year later, I had an idea for a low-cost, high-resolution scanning UV microscope—the key
was low cost. This was a new concept, and I felt it would be a good fit for the company
because we made all kinds of things related to UV technology. I talked to the company
president, and he ended up not supporting the idea. He actually got a marketing

consultant in who surveyed the market and said there wasn't a market for this kind of
microscope.
Of course, for breakthrough things,there's never a market. I still think it's a good idea, but
they didn't go along with it, so I let it go. Around 1982, a couple of years into my new
position, I had another idea, the one that would eventually become 3D printing. I pressed
the same company president about pursuing it because I felt we could develop a market
for it.
I guess I wasn't persuasive enough. He wasn't interested, but I persisted. He finally said,
"You can work on this, but do it on your own time. Do it nights and weekends. You can
use one of the labs in the company, but do it on your own time." So my day job was
running the engineering department, developing new products for the company, and my
night job was inventing 3D printing.
My idea was to find a way to quickly make prototype plastic parts. Back in those days, it
took six to eight weeks from when you had a finished design—either on a computer or,
more typically, as a set of blueprints—to when you had the first physical article. This was
because the design had to go first to a tool designer, then to a tool maker, and then to a
molder. The molder would mold the first articles, and then you would get them back.
Typically, designs are never right the first time, so you'd make changes, then go back
through the tool designer, the tool maker, and the molder. This was a very tedious
process, and it slowed the whole product design and introduction cycle whenever plastic
parts were used.
I had actually experienced this a number of times in my engineering career, so I had a
good idea of the problem I was trying to solve. The company that I worked for made all
kinds of things for UV applications, and one of the things we made were high-intensity
UV lights for curing what were then innovative new materials, UV-cured materials for
coatings and inks. The materials were used as furniture coatings and floor coatings and so
forth, or they were used in screen printing. When I saw these UV-cured materials, I saw
them as thin sheets of plastic, and I wondered if there was some process that would allow
you to stack up and bond cured layers of this material, cured cross-sections, to make
prototype plastic parts. That would speed up the design cycle for new parts.
I set about working on this. It was a very multidisciplinary kind of thing. It included
material science, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, along with quite a bit of
optics—and as always, with anything like this, a lot of software. I tried lots of approaches,
many things that failed, and then finally got onto a viable path. That led to the first
printed part that evening in 1983, and the first 3D printer.

1st
3D printed part
By 1986, our first patent had been issued, and I was getting really anxious to develop a
commercial 3D printer. This was very interesting technology. I continued with the work,
and got it better and better. Finally, I talked to the company president. I laid out the
programs, and the dollars, and the time we would need to commercialize the invention.
The president would not move forward. He said he really couldn't afford this kind of
development; he couldn't afford the investment that would be required. By that time, I
had studied entrepreneurship, mostly at the Cal Tech Enterprise Forum, so I worked out
an agreement with the president to spin out a new company for the 3D printing
technology.
By this time, of course, all the naysayers came out of the woodwork. It won't work, it's not
a good idea, and nobody’s going to buy it. You're going to be broke in six months. I
somehow ignored all that and founded 3D Systems. I licensed the 3D printing technology
back from the company I had developed it for and gave them a share of the new company.
Then I started working through the daunting transition from having a paying job to not
having a paying job. I added an experienced business partner, someone who'd already
started a business, and then, with me as the president and my partner as CEO, we jumped
into the startup business.
First, we raised capital, which is not easy when you have an idea for a product for which
there is no market. We peddled our business plan to every venture capitalist who would
listen to us. They were all very polite, but nobody offered any money. Finally, we found a

Canadian venture capitalist who said, "Hell yes, we'll do this." We were in business. We
kicked off the operations and the rapid prototyping, and 3D printing industry was born.
There were no other additive manufacturing or 3D printing companies. We were it, a
brand new company all by itself in a brand new field.
It took us a couple years to develop our first product— and the first commercial 3D
printers were ready to go to market. We developed really wonderful customer
relationships with early adopters, mostly from large companies, who also wanted to help
us succeed. We started both European and Asian distribution from the start. Our logic
was that manufacturing is a worldwide endeavor and we wanted to participate worldwide.
That was pretty audacious for a startup company, but over the years, half the revenue
from our 3D printing efforts has come from outside the United States.
The first stereolithography 3D-printer, SLA 1
Growth was rapid. The automotive industry saw the potential first and began to embrace
3D printing to speed up design cycles. Time to market was a critical issue in the US
automotive industry at that time. Next, many aerospace and other manufacturing
companies decided to try 3D printing, and then a number of service bureaus, or small
companies, sprang up; these acquired our technology and used it to serve the general
manufacturing industry. The service bureaus were a major force in spreading the adoption
of 3D printing.
That first year of sales was eventful. We went public. First in Canada, because that's where
our financing was, and then fairly soon after that, we moved to NASDAQ. Now, many
years later, we're on the New York Stock Exchange. And right away we had to defend our
patent position. This was a major effort for a startup company. We had reexamination

challenges and then infringers, and of course, since we were global, this was all around the
world. We had to spend a major amount of time and effort and money to defend our
intellectual property. Ultimately, we were successful and established a firm intellectual
property position, but it ended up taking several years. I've often wondered how many
lawyers' children I put through school, but it ultimately paid off.
Over the next 10 years, we continued to innovate in 3D printing. We made larger 3D
printers, lower-cost 3D printers, much better 3D printers, and much better 3D printing
materials were developed.
We also developed applications. We continued to innovate and to work with customers.
Better 3D CAD tools were a key to our success. When we started, affordable, quality 3D
CAD tools just weren't available, and our technology absolutely required these tools to
grow. But as 3D printing became more known and some of the larger companies started
using it, that stimulated the CAD companies to make better and more affordable CAD
tools. It was synergistic.
A lot of our growth during that period was driven by customer interactions. We had
outstanding customer interfaces, built on supportive user groups both in the United States
and in Europe. We ran programs with these groups, continually asking, "How do you
make 3D printing more accurate? How do you accommodate different applications?" As
we worked with customers who saw the potential for 3D printing to help their businesses
we asked, "How do we modify our technology to make 3D printing work for you?"
Other 3D printing companies began to emerge during this period in the United States, in
Europe, and in Asia. When we started, it was just us; now there were lots of us. We
certainly didn't grow in a nice straight line. We had periods of high growth, and then
periods where growth would stall or even backslide some. It took several rounds of
financing to grow the company through this period, so we brought in a lot more
shareholders.
Many of the primary markets that emerged are in direct manufacturing.We found a lot of
places where we could manufacture products with 3D printing. The casting market, in
general, was very interesting for us, and then, healthcare customers started to emerge. All
in all, this was a period in which we really learned our craft, if you will, and came to
understand how to make 3D printers that added value for our customers.
After 13 years of seven-day weeks and long days, I finally burned out. We had new
executives in place, so I retired and left the company. Man that was boring. Fortunately,
after about three months, the CEO called and said that technical development was
slipping since I had left and asked if I would consider coming back as the chief technology
officer. It took me about three seconds to say yes.
That was 16 years ago, and I'm still at it—and I still love it. My return came at a pretty
rocky time, though. Just after I came in. He didn't do well. We had a period of slow growth
and low profitability—a struggling time. In 2003, the company brought on AviReichental,

our current CEO. If you know Avi, you know he's an amazing businessperson,
entrepreneur, and engineer.
Avi brought in a new executive staff and revived the business; since then, we've had good
revenue growth and good earnings. We've ramped up innovation, introduced new
applications, built better printers. With the great recession of 2007 and 2008, our business
turned down, along with everybody else's, and we were pretty concerned about the future.
But amazingly, our downturn didn't last. We had a very rapid recovery and an upturn.
While other companies were still struggling with the recession, we were booming: it
turned out that major corporations around the world were depending on us to help them
innovate their way out of the recession.
All of our hard work had paid off. We had a very special business based on special
technology, and since that recession, we've had continuing, rapid growth. We've grown
both through innovation and also through lots of acquisitions. We rolled up and
incorporated a lot of emerging 3D printing technology companies, integrating these new
companies, innovating the stuff they had, and adding innovations on top of their
technology.
Then the Maker movement emerged. Makers are individuals who use 3D printers—those
they've made themselves or those they've bought for the purpose—to create their own
innovations, or to support the innovation of other makers. This enthusiastic group has
raised general awareness about 3D printing.
There has also been growing awareness of the healthcare applications for 3D printing.
Between the Maker movement and the healthcare movement, and—hopefully—as a result
of our own hard work, 3D printing has really gone viral. Now almost everybody has heard
about it. It's very unlike the early days, when I had to try to explain what it was, and why
people should care. Now, perfect strangers tell me about 3D printing, so I don't have to
worry about that anymore.

Inventor Chuck Hull with a modern industrial 3D printer
In my journey, I've accumulated 85 US patents, 76 of them in 3D printing, but thousands
of engineers and scientists have contributed to developing 3D printing as it is today.
Hundreds of patent applications are filed in this field every year, now.
We have developed seven different types of printers, each using a different set of materials
targeted to specific applications and markets. That broad range of printers is required to
support different materials, different sizes, speeds, and prices. So it's no longer just the
one 3D printer I started with. The technology, and the market, have really broadened. The
materials include polymers, metals, ceramics, composites, food, probably other things,
too, by now. There's a wide range of 3D printing applications and markets and customers.
There's still the traditional engineering market that I had in mind when I started this
process helping engineers get designs prototyped quickly—but manufacturing is now a
major segment as well; that includes parts, tools, fixtures, patterns, molds, anything that's
used in the manufacturing world.
There are a growing number of applications in health care, including applications in
dental, hearing, surgical planning, surgical guides, implants, braces, and more Jewelry
design and manufacturing is a growing area, as well. If you're a really good football player
and you win the Superbowl, your ring will be 3D printed. Probably, your daughter's class
ring was 3D printed, along with lots of other jewelry around the world. Aviation, space,
military, the power industry, consumer products, hobbyists—the markets continue to
expand. You can get 3D printers at Amazon now, or Staples. Cloud printing lets you design
something in your office or at home, submit your design files via the Internet, and get
your product shipped to you. People are doing incredible things with these tools. Fine art,
furniture, decorations, pottery, confectionaries, food, even a custom knee replacement.
The list goes on and on.

A 3D-printed prosthetic made with 3D-printed components
We have major competitors in the 3D printing market now, and lots of smaller companies.
There is a constant stream of new entrants; I can hardly keep track of them anymore.
They're based in Israel, Europe, Asia, and the United States. Startups and spinouts and
major companies are all venturing into 3D printing.
And there's a growing body of research around 3D printing, much of it government
sponsored, taking place at universities and research institutes around the world. This
research spans a wide array of fields, including architecture, biomedical design,
electronics, materials, and more.

A 3D-printed a bionic mobility suit made with 3D-printed components
3D printing has become associated with the third industrial revolution. Of course 3D
printing plays a role in localized manufacturing, but there's a lot more to localized
manufacturing than just 3D printing. It is one component of digital manufacturing, the
broader term for technologies that lower the cost of labor and allow manufacturing close
to home.
3D printing and the technologies of digital manufacturing—robotics, machining, casting,
molding, and, most important, the integration of different technologies to get a synergistic
effect—levels the playing field across the globe. Most advances in digital manufacturing
have not been invented yet—more inventors, more innovators, more entrepreneurs have a
chance to participate. So, get down to the lab right away.
How 3D Printing Works
3D printing, the process of making a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model,
is set to revolutionize the way industries manufacture parts. Here’s how 3D printing
works:

STEP 1:
A 3D image is created using a computer-aided design software.
How 3D printing works
STEP 2:
The CAD file is sent to the printer
STEP 3:
The printer lays down successive layers of liquid, powder, paper or metal material
and builds the model from a series of cross sections.
Redesigninga Production Chain Based on 3D PrintingTechnology
INTRODUCATION
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing are two terminologies that refer to a technological
procedure that turns computer digital files into solid objects. These solid objects are first
designed using a computer and computer-aided design software, or the designs are
scanned through a 3D scanner, and they are fabricated using a 3D printer. Once the model
is created, it is sliced into many cross-sectional layers, and a 3D printer can print all the
layers and place one on top of the other.

According to Barnatt (2013), ‘there are printers that form object layers by extruding a
semi-liquid material from a computer-controlled print head nozzle. Then, there are
printers that use “photopolymerization” to selectively solidify a liquid with a laser beam or
other light source. Finally, there are devices that print by adhering particles of powder to
achieve some form of granular material binding. A spool of bolt material, referred to as
filament, is slowly fed into a print head that is heated between 200 to 250 °C. This
temperature melts the filament, which is then extruded through a fine nozzle.
Commonly used materials are plastics, metals, ceramics, nickel chromium, cobalt
chromium, stainless steel, titanium and polymers. Casey (2009) claims that 3D printing is
a ‘rapid technology’, based on the ease of manufacturing a new product or producing an
existing one with changes. According to Thilmany (2009), it is inexpensive to use 3D
technology. It costs the same to produce two different variants as two identical ones.
Alpern (2010) notes that ‘…all you have to do, is to load a file and you can replicate shapes
that are not manufacturable through traditional methods. All this, is called a flexible
factory in the box’.
Common products include prototypes, mock-ups, replacement parts, dental crowns and
artificial limbs.
The 3D printers have several advantages in developing prototypes and mock-ups,
including (1) ease of duplicating products, (2) low cost and (3) product security and
privacy considerations (Berman, 2012).
Olivarez (2010) said that his hope was that people, instead of going to the store, would go
online and download what they needed and print it out.
Although the interest of researchers in 3D printing is great, the literature up to today is
limited. According to our knowledge,changes in production have not been mentioned in
detail until today. As is already known, a production chain is the procedure of
transforming raw materials into goods. Many different steps are necessary in order to
convert available resources into products, such as planning, manufacturing and selling.
The production chain procedure seems to have changed through additive manufacturing,
as 3D printing has restructured the steps of the production chain. The goal of this study is
to explore the changes to the following steps:
designing,
planning,

Manufacturing and
Selling.
In other words, this study will examine how the production chain is being transformed,
which steps are changing, which steps are being replaced and which new steps are being
added.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents a brief review of the
applications of 3D printing in rural life, medicine, aviation and so on. Section 3 describes
the changes that affect the production chain by using additive technology. Section 4
presents the redesigned production flowcharts. Section 5 discusses the implications of 3D
printing both in social and economic life, while Section 6 concludes the results and
suggests areas for further research.
THE 3D PRINTING INDUSTRY TODAY
The wide range of 3D printing applications will be presented in this section. Medicine,
education, culture, the clothing and footwear industry, the arms industry and so on are
some of the areas that have already taken advantage of 3D printing. Items such as body
organs, upper and lower limbs, dentures, guns, toys, shoes, jewellery and artwork statues
are produced via additive manufacturing.
To begin, regarding applications in the medicine sector, we note the steps that have been
taken in the field of breast reconstruction and, more specifically, at the nipple level. Based
on 3D printing, a firm called TeVidoBioDevices has printed 3D breast tissue, which works
with a patient’s own fat and skin cells to create a 3D graft.
As well, 3D-printed models are also used by medical students or doctors in order to help
them perform difficult operations. For example, brain surgeries or surgeries on the spinal
column become easier, as doctors can prepare mock surgeries to increase their awareness
of potential difficulties.
Prosthetic implants are also fabricated based on 3D scanners and using 3D printers. With
3D scanners, doctors can create digital models of wounds to examine them and decide on
the best recovery methods. With 3D scanners and printers, models of specified body
organs, such as the liver, the pancreas or the bones, can be designed, printed and used in a
surgery.
Big steps have also been taken in the area ofaerospace. According to Molitch-Hou, 2014a,
2014b, 2014c, in June of the same year, a rocket completely fabricated using 3D printing
technology had been introduced in the rocket industry. New turbines that give engines a
stronger thrust, reduce fuel consumption and ensure higher durability are also fabricated
using 3D printing technology for mass production.

Jewellery is another area that the additive manufacturing procedure has infiltrated.
Bracelets, necklaces and rings are fabricated via 3D printing technology, making the 3D-
printed jewellery marketplace an emerging industry. Artists from all over the word send
their designs to web platforms like Shapeways or Stilnest (www.shapeways.com;
www.stilnest.com), and based on the orders, these industries print the necessary objects.
The basic problem in this area is the quality of the artists that sell their work. The
question of manufacturing unpopular products does not exist, as the digital files become
solid objects right after order placement.
Finally, many objects necessary to daily life, including chairs and tables, are manufactured
via 3D printing. Recently, small sculpture designs based on individual dimensions (height,
weight, etc.) and saved on a digital 3D scanner file were fabricated, and they are known as
the ‘Mini Me’s’ (Taylor, 2014). As well, in Singapore, a company allows children to insert
their faces into cartoons and movies, as well as to create 3D-printed toys of themselves as
superheroes.
The food industry has also taken advantage of 3D printing. Last January, the Barilla
Company, in collaboration with the Dutch scientific research company (TNO), worked on
a 3D pasta printer. The scope of this project was to create digital files that customers carry
with them when they visit a restaurant, so the files can be printed by themat their table
(Molitch-Hou, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). Finally, a 3D printer that prints chocolate was
fabricated last month in India. This printer uses chocolate as the printing material, and it
is called the ChocoBot.
CHANGES IN THE PRODUCTION CHAIN
Changes in product design
Product design is a process of creating a new product that will be consumed by customers
through a business.
Based on the traditional manufacturing procedure, product designers conceptualise ideas,
choose those that seem to be valuable to consumers and, in cooperation with businesses,
turn these ideas into products that will be sold to customers. The product designer creates
new products based on art, science and technology.
The design of a product relates to colour, shape, size, drawing, dimensions, environmental
factors, ergonomic factors and quality. It is very important to note that a product designer
must consider the audience to which that product is addressed.
With the 3D printing manufacturing procedure, things are different. The designer
sketches a model, determines the dimensions of the model and decides the optimum
number of layers that the model must to be sliced into. Based on this simplicity, the
designer can feel free to sketch a product without limitations. Shapes that, until recently,
were not manufacturable can now be printed.

Once the digital file is ready, fabrication is very simple. We just click ‘print’, and the model
becomes a solid object. The major advantage of this type of fabrication is the ease of
changes. By making slight modifications to the initial digital file, a new object is
manufactured without cost and without effort. This means that based on the same digital
file, many customers with different profiles and different needs may have a customised
product that fulfils their needs in a more efficient way. If we look deeper inside this simple
statement, we understand that this new technology improves the communication between
designers and consumers.
CHANGES IN PRODUCTION PLANNING
Production planning is a production framework that determines the production goals,
identifies which resources are required, prepares a plan for achieving the productions
goals efficiently and on time, forecasts steps in the production process, estimates risks and
prepares alternative scenarios for eliminating causes of wastage. All of the aforementioned
take place in a traditional production plan. We argue that the aforementioned steps are
changing nowadays because of additive manufacturing. The first change has to do with the
number of suppliers. In a traditional production chain, once the goals and deadlines of
production have been determined, the required materials are identified, and a list with
vendors is compiled. With 3D printing production, although the production goals remain
the same, the list of suppliers is very short because fewer materials are used by 3D
printers.
The major difference between these two types of production concerns the steps in the
production procedures.In 3D printing, the printed objects are components of a product or
a final good. This means that solid products are either products that are ready for use or
they are parts of end products. Products, until today, have been the end results of many
tasks and sub-procedures. These processes are serial or parallel, and each time a sub-
procedure is fulfilled, a part or a component of the product is ready. These parts are
necessary to continue and complete the production scheme. In 3D printing, intermediate
processes are absent.
In both production approaches, the steps, such as demand forecasts, risk estimations and
the identification of scenarios for risk elimination, are the same.
CHANGES IN PRODUCT MANUFACTURING
As mentioned earlier, procedures with many processes are absent in additive technology
fabrications.In this sub-section, we examine the manufacturing procedure according to
product customisation, product repair and technology advancements.
In a traditional manufacturing chain, identical products in either big or small quantities
are produced. In very special and rare cases, a small number of customised products are
fabricated. The product customisation problem relates to the limited changes that can be
made to the basic production model. As already mentioned, customised products are very

common in 3D production, and small changes to digital files end up as specialised
products.
Until recently, both consumers and producers preferred to buy or sell a new product
instead of repairing it. Firms avoid repairing broken products, so 3D technology is trying
to change this perception. As products are fabricated from a digital file in 3D printing
technology, these files are stored in a computer and can be reprinted at any time. In cases
where files are missing, a broken product could be scanned through a 3D scanner, and the
broken part could be designed digitally and then printed. Replacement parts of products
are not easily fabricated through the traditional manufacturing procedure. Apart from the
cost of fabrication, warehousing costs are another inhibitory factor.
Technology advancements have led to improved production methods in both traditional
and 3D printing fabrications. New machines and new techniques improve both product
quality and innovation.
According to Molyneux and Shamroukh (1999), product innovation depends on the
induction of a new product or the induction of a new method for producing a known
product. In the additive technology manufacturing procedure, innovation has another
sense and concerns both 3D printers and used materials, as today’s 3D printers use powder
or polymers. Nowadays, the chemical
Industry experiments with new materials that will be compatible with printers. In the 3D
industry, technology innovation concerns both new products and new materials.
CHANGES IN MATERIAL UTILIZATION
The issue of wasting materials in the field of product manufacturing is one that gains the
interest of many researchers in the literature. In classic fabrication, industries supply vast
quantities of raw materials. These materials are consumed in order to produce either parts
of products or intermediate elements of products. The productive methods that are
typically used are subtractive, and they use solid materials that are cut, filed, droll and so
on.
On the other hand, the manufacturing technique of 3D printing is additive, where 3D
printers begin with a sketch in two dimensions and create a final object by adding
material layer by layer. This procedure implies fewer raw materials. According to
Petrovicet al. (2011), there is less waste material with 3D printing; there is no scrap, milling
or sanding. The waste material in metal applications is reduced by 40% in comparison
with manufacturing with subtractive technologies. This material reduction implies cost
reductions and products with lower budgets.
CHANGES IN INVENTORY
Based on the literature (Nahmias, 1997; Krajewski and Ritzman, 1999), an inventory is a
stock of materials that are used to satisfy customer demand or to support the production

of goods. An inventory relates to the following three categories: raw materials, works in
process (WIP) and finished goods. Raw materials are input into the transformation
procedure to produce a product. WIP include items that are either components or
assemblies needed for the final product; finally, finished goods are the items that will be
consumed by customers.
There are many reasons for industries to store inventories. An inventory is the end result
of unexpected demand. Uncertainty of demand is a crucial factor for storing goods or
intermediate components. Economies of scale is another reason. Firms produce many
large orders to sell an amount of an item, and they store some others for future use. In
rethinking these three categories of inventories, we assume that things are changing with
3D printing technology.
The main difference concerns the limited number of raw materials that are suitable for 3D
printers. Some quantities of raw materials are still stored, but as already mentioned,
polymers and powders are the commonly used materials.
As the 3D printing manufacturing procedure does not involve intermediate tasks, once the
procedure begins, the printed objects are integrated components or final products.
Therefore, the WIP category is reduced. However, finished goods is the category that is
eliminated the most, as an inventory of goods does not exist with 3D fabrication.
Industries store only digital files. Storing solid objects is not a common task, as objects are
produced only after orders are received and paid for. Both uncertainties concern lead time
and transportation, which exist in cases where products are delivered via standard
transportation means; otherwise, if digital files are sent to consumers, no delays are
experienced.
CHANGES IN THE RETAIL MARKET
Up to this point, we have described the changes in product design and manufacturing, but
changes in the retail market are also remarkable. Physical stores—in order to satisfy future
or unexpected demand—stock products in a space in the store or in warehouses.
Customers can buy a product either physically by visiting a point of sale or online using an
e-platform.
On the other hand, with 3D printing, there is no need for warehouses. What is really
necessary is a computer or a memory stick of a large size to which a large number of
digital files can be saved. In that sense, there is no need for a physical store.
Before continuing, it must be clear that there are two different policies in the 3D printing
industry. Today, there are industries that sell printed products. These industries or firms

have physical stores where the printers are located. A consumer can buy a product online
and pay for it, and then the object is printed and sent by standard mail (s-mail) or courier.
In this sense, physical stores are the points of print, although a web platform is also
necessary for clients to place their orders. In the near future, the trend will be the mass
customisation of 3D printers. If individuals have a 3D printer of their own, they will only
buy digital files from a store. The store (online or physical), after order placement, sends
the file to the customer via email so they can print the finished good.
RESCHEDULING PRODUCTION FLOWCHARTS
Since 1970, two philosophies have monopolised the production scheme: materials
requirement planning (MRP) and just in time (JIT) systems. The first was commonly used
by American producers starting in the 1970s and 1980s, and the other is used by the
Japanese and was introduced as a production practice that saved the Toyota Motor
Company from bankruptcy.
According toNahmias (1997), at the heart ofMRP is the production plan. As is already
known, a production plan is a complete specification of the number of each item, the exact
timing of the production lot sizes and the final schedule of the competition. The
production plan may be broken down into several components: the master production
schedules in the MRP system the detail the job shop schedule. At the heart of the
production plan are the forecasts of demand for the end items produced over the planning
horizon. The JIT philosophy is used for production lots of small sizes, and it is used in
order to ensure that products are produced only as they are needed. Two basic
characteristics are involved, including the elimination of WIP inventories and the
procedure of sequentially flowing information from level to level.
Although it is risky, we assume that production using 3D printers is more familiar with the
JIT philosophy than the MRP philosophy. As mentioned earlier, in the 3D printing
procedure, products are manufactured after they are sold; they are printed layer by layer
once the digital file exists, and the size of the lot is usually small.

(Nahmias, 1997) Procedures and steps in the production scheme
Going one step further, we look at the transformation of the production scheme. Figure 1
presents a classic production procedure, with many steps and sub-procedures that are
sequel or parallel.
The aforementioned scheme is changed through additive technology, and it can be
reformed in a simple scheme, as is shown in the following figure. Figure 2 presents the
steps of the 3D production procedure.
The next two figures specify the steps of the production chain and present a simplified
procedure of producing an object using a classical procedure and of printing an object via
a 3D printer. In the classical procedure, the following assumptions have been made:
 The products have been packed, and they areeither kept at warehouses or not.
 The procedure of producing an object is dividedinto sub-procedures. Some tasks of
these proceduresare fulfilled at Work Center 1 and othersat Work Center 2.
Once the products are fabricated, they are checkedregarding their quality, and then the
objects arepacked and transferred to physical stores for selling.Figure 3b presents the
production scheme of 3Dprinting as it is today. A digital file is sketched, a physical or
online store advertises the product, and a client places an order for a specific product;
then, the store supplies the necessary materials, prints the object, examines the quality of
the printed object, packs the product and then ships the product to the client via s-mail. It
is important to note that although a 3D printer fabricates products, instead of buying files,
consumers still buy products. They choose a digital file from a digital library, and then a
solid object is delivered to them instead of a digital file. Cost is the reason for this
simplification. Until today, the consumption of 3D printers has been fragmented. Both 3D
printers and materials that are used are very expensive. The cost of buying a 3D printer
and the corresponding materials is prohibitive, so clients prefer to buy a printed object.
Some basic differences are identified between these two production schemes. The first
difference concerns the order of ‘sales’. As mentioned earlier, 3D-printed objects are
produced after they have been sold, which is why ‘sales’ in Figure 3b is at the beginning of
the procedure (second stage). However, in the classical approach, the products are sold
after they have been transferred to the retail shops. This is the reason why ‘sales’ is the last
stage of the manufacturing procedure.
The absence of inventories is another important difference. In the classical approach,
inventory management gains the interest of many researchers in the literature, but with
the 3D printing approach, inventories do not exist. Work centres also do not exist in the
second scheme, and there are no subprocedures. The printed objects are the final objects.
In cases that involve intermediate elements, these elements, when printed, are ready for

use, and they are parts of the final products. Basic tasks, such as quality assurance,
packaging and product transferring either to shops or to consumers, remain stable.
A scheme of this new production approach. In the first stage, three tasks will take place in
sequence. The designer sketches the object; either the designer or an authorised printing
company prints the object and then checks the validity of the solid object to be sure about
the end result of the printed object. (The designer ‘sells’ his sketch to a company and then
the company advertises the product and sells the sketch to the people. Otherwise, the
designer sells his sketch on his own to the people through his personal online shop.) At
the second stage, a consumer buys only the digital file, the designer or the company sends
the file directly to the client by email and the consumer simply prints the file. Retail shops
are entirely absent. Stakeholders of the procedure include: the designer, the company and
the consumer. In the case of a design whose suitability could be checked by the designer
and sold directly to the clients, the procedure becomes simpler and includes only the
designer and the consumer.
Which outlines the re-engineered production chain, is very important. Apart from the
changes in fabrication, it also provides changes in the structures of both the economy and
society. If this production scheme is verified, then labour will be restructured, and the
whole production base will be redesigned. Changing the order of the stages of the
production chain means, firstly, changes to the working relations and, secondly, changes

to the relations of domination in society. Although 3D printing seems simple, it in fact
brings about a rearrangement of the social fabric.
CONCLUSION
The world is changing, as 3D printing technology redefines both production and
consumption. The production chain changes as manufacturing procedures are simplified
with fewer tasks and fewer steps. Using additive manufacturing technology, products are
sketched and then by clicking ‘print’, the digital file becomes a solid object. One of the
most important changes to this procedure of ‘Designing- Planning-Manufacturing-Selling’
concerns the luck of the inventory process. Products are printed after order placement,
leading to the elimination of storage costs and the costs of unsold products.
As well, 3D printing provides solutions to two other problems: it supplies small markets
and produces customised products. Small markets can be served without requiring
manufacturing companies to warehouse or produce goods at large costs. The customised
production is associated with the ability to make small or big changes to a product’s
prototype, that is, in colour, in size or in scheme without cost and to satisfy customers’
needs in a more efficient way. The digital files used for 3D printing to fabricate solid
products are flexible to small or big changes, thus improving client satisfaction.
Economic and social effects are also realized through 3D printing technology. Apart from
labour changes, changes will also take place at the social level. The restructuring of the
product chain means new positions for all stockholders, not only in the product chain but
also in the social chain rule. These changes are not always welcome. As they transform
people’s daily lives, they sometimes will be treated as enemies. This is a very important
issue that industries and governments must take into consideration. In order to describe
inmore detail the changes provided by 3D printing technology to the product chain, we
must examine the transformation of traditional approaches to production operation
problems. Managing incoming orders, managing demand paths, formulating cost
functions (order cost, holding cost, set-up cost and penalty cost), reformulating the
Economic Order Quantity Model, managing service levels, optimising lead time and
pricing these new products are some issues for further research.

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