3D printing can reduce lead times and

inventory, but it’s not for everything

(Credit: Marco Verch/Flickr )       

AUTHOR

Matt Leonard@Matt_Lnrd

PUBLISHED: Aug. 19, 2019 – SupplyChainDive

Dive Brief:

• More than 40% of 1300 users of 3D printing view reduced lead times as one of the benefits of the technology, according to the 2019 State of 3D Printing survey by Sculpteo.
• This is seen as an even bigger benefit for users in the industrial goods sector, with nearly 60% of respondents in this category citing lead times as a benefit.
• “A reduction in lead time would imply a reduction in inventory and a reduction in costs,” Mohsen Attaran, an operations management professor at California State University Bakersfield, wrote in a 2017 paper “The rise of 3-D printing: The advantages of additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing.”

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