Operationalisation of 3D Printing Service Provision
- 3D printing offers opportunities to reduce Supply Chain (SC) complexity by manufacturing parts closer to the points of assembly and/or maintenance (Holmström and Partanen, 2014), and can also lead to the development of entrepreneurial businesses (Holzmann et al., 2017). Overall, 3D printing is having a major effect on business models, SC configurations and service provisions (Despeisse et al., 2017; Gebler et al., 2014; Hopkinson et al., 2006; Lipson and Kurman, 2013; Rayna et al., 2015). However, notwithstanding technological advances and standardization of the 3D printing technologies, wider adoption needs to overcome current hurdles such as high machine acquisition and raw materials costs, limited pool of skilled workforce, limited range of raw materials and slow manufacturing speed.