How to use 3D printing to reduce supply chain volatility

By Ronen Lebi, VP, Head of P3 Business Unit

The?first phase of the?supply chain disruption, which lasted from 2020 through 2021, was?due to?lockdowns?causing both forced closures and a massive uptick in?just?in?time?(JIT)?manufacturing. We are now entering the?second phase of supply chain instability: while manufacturers and distributors?can?regain operation, they are struggling with worker shortages, inventory?buildup?and?lack of materials. It’s time for a retrospective on how?we, the makers of things in this increasingly global economy, do?our jobs?-?and how we?should change our strategies along with an evolving world.??

These disruptions?have?caused intense problems for?75% of businesses, according to Accenture.?They?are also?wreaking havoc?on the average cost of most goods,?risking a vicious cycle: delays?in?production, which drive?up?prices?and?make production more expensive, rinse and repeat.?We must consider what we’ve learned over the past year, and?how we can?minimize future disruptions.??

Digital manufacturing?powered by?industrial-scale 3D printing?can have?a big role to play?in at least three ways:?

• Reshoring?or regionalizing?– specifically, moving production closer to where your customers or users are.?
• On-demand, on-location?production -?in which we move to a model where less inventory sits on shelves, and instead is made dynamically as – and where - needed.?
• Supplier?and outsourcing?reduction?–?3D printing supports vertical integration, reducing dependence on many different suppliers that each create links that can break your supply chain. You can both reduce the number of parts and produce more of them in-house.???

Breaking the weakest link?

Amid quarantine rules and labor shortages that affected air, land and sea transportation heavily, including massive delays at ports, shipping costs went up?by a factor of six in just?one?year.?One company quoted a?cost?of $32,000 per container?from Shanghai to Los Angeles.??

The reality is, as with anything, if a supply chain is allowed to?become?too?complex?and?reliant on multiple suppliers, it becomes fragile – if any one of those suppliers fails, the whole chain breaks.?There are also situations,?such as?stocking inventory or?spare parts, where dual manufacturing?(using both traditional and additive manufacturing for part creation?depending on volume needed)?will result in?significant cost savings?and increased stability.??

Dual manufacturing serves as a reinforcement of this?link and?can be the difference between a?one-day?halt?in production and a?one-month?halt in production if traditional, off-shore manufacturing is compromised.??

If one link fails, the entire chain does.?Reduce links where you?can and?reinforce the ones you can’t.??

Removing?the?weakest link?by reshoring?manufacturing operations??

3D printing can remove some links, because it is a type of manufacturing that can be done almost anywhere.??

The most important step a manufacturer can take right now is to reduce the links in their supply chain, which means?moving?manufacturing?either in house or?closer to?its end destination.?This can mean?having?3D?printers in-house for quick turn prototyping and?production;?installing 3D printers?to enable printing of some parts on the same site as?where products are assembled;?or having several printers installed near or at retail locations for production?on-demand.?Aside from end-use parts, consider if tools, guides, prototypes,?spare parts?and anything else you?currently ship out for production could instead be printed where they are most used.??

My favorite example of the benefits of?moving part production?in house?is when?an?Origin?One?customer,?TE Connectivity, was tasked with creating?a new line of connectors?for one of their?customers?in volumes of a few thousand.?One of the main challenges they faced was that?both TE and their?customer?needed a way to do this quickly – because fast means responsive to market needs, which is the opposite of how today’s supply chains typically?work.??

Read about how TE Connectivity made high quality parts comparable to injection molding right in their facility.??

Consider:?Are there parts that could be made?more efficiently with 3D printing??Make your manufacturing more?profitable,?flexible?and responsive by moving manufacturing?in-house.?

Changing from stored inventory to on-demand production??

?Just-in-time has gotten a lot of blame for our current supply chain woes?because it doesn’t handle unexpected demand well.?As?Bloomberg?recently reported?in an article examining holiday demand for consumer goods:

“The warehouses surrounding the ports are chock-full of inventory, which is contributing to the gridlock because there’s limited space for newly arrived goods. But those inventory levels are low relative to expected sales. And as retailers try to plan for that demand, they’re adjusting orders to prioritize top sellers,”?

This is why some stores?have excess while another?retailer?nearby may be out of stock of the same product.?

In fact, there is a way to do?JIT?right.??Enventys Partners, a full-service product launch company that handles all aspects of product development, crowdfunding and ecommerce marketing, took the path of 3D printing when faced with a proposal that would challenge their?client’s?ROI.?FloSonix,?a medical device company,?approached?Enventys?Partners with?a solution for a lice treatment product.???The?requirement was for an?end-to-end solution, from design to manufacturing.?Additionally, they?only needed a few hundred a year, a difficult number to produce without sacrificing ROI.??

Read more about Enventys Partner’s?quick turn manufacturing?solution for?FloSonix, which?can easily be applied to any part or product that is needed?in?small or medium quantities.??

Consider:?Are you holding inventory of parts that you may or may not use??3D printing can eliminate?your risk of?inventory waste by reducing the need to buy and hold parts that are not needed yet.?

Increase efficiency?and?flexibility of?your?supply chain?with 3D printing??

A?recent McKinsey?survey?found that?while most industries agree that?regionalizing?their operations has clear benefits, some are?lagging behind: while healthcare leaps ahead with 60% reporting regionalization of manufacturing, automotive, aerospace and defense?lag behind?with just 22%.?However,?almost 90 percent of respondents?are?pursuing?some degree of regionalization?by 2025.?

There are two key?benefits?of regionalizing:?efficiency and flexibility. The first benefit is?that parts made closer to where they are needed?do not need to rely on shipping nearly as heavily, and that shipping method is less likely to?fail without potential replacement (it’s easier to switch from UPS to FedEx than to find space on another freighter).?The second, more?long-term?benefit, is that a regionalized, distributed manufacturing network means that if one?point fails, others can pick up the slack.??

We?became part of one of these networks in 2020, when the Origin team became part of the?distributed network of 3D printers creating?PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)?to combat the shortages. This involvement led them to evaluating, validating, and?3D printing test swabs?in the?hundreds?of thousands per week.?

We?were one?member of a global movement – the rule in 2020 became, essentially,?“if you have a 3D printer, make PPE,” with everyone from professionals to hobbyists sharing their work with local hospitals, organizations and individuals that were in need.?A distributed network of?3D printers?was?such an effective method for rapid manufacturing?that?it is becoming part of medical manufacturing as an industry, in preparation for future?supply chain disruptions.?Now consider?how this method?could benefit your own production capabilities, and how much faster and?easier you could?manufacture new products, create stock on demand?and quickly get?parts?to where they are needed.??

Consider: Have you experienced challenges during production due to a limited manufacturing vendor pool? What would be possible if some of your parts were made via 3D printing on?location,?or closer to their end-users??

The supply chain needs?shortening??

I know that?3D printing cannot replace all, or even?most?traditional manufacturing.?That said, I do believe that this type of manufacturing can do your organization a world of good if applied in strategic ways.?This is especially true as we?enter into?the second phase of the supply chain disruption, where we will see?some suppliers begin to falter?due to ongoing financial strain.??

If you’d like to avoid another supply chain crisis in your own organization,?look?at your parts list and SKU mix. What parts could be?reshored??How?can parts?be?consolidated? Can they be?made closer to their end-users??What could be?done?on-demand?and locally???