3D Printer Impacts on Small & Mid-sized Businesses (SMBs) Supply Chain

Abstract

In this thesis, I aimed to describe the effects of the 3D Printer on small & mid-sized Businesses’(SMBs) supply chain management. Whereby, I conducted this primary research to illustrate the 3D Printer as a business idea, and then, to emphasize that usage of the 3D Printer in an organization’s supply chain can be beneficial in terms of avoiding disruption in the supply chain process. While global supply chain management is eased nowadays by the progress in technology trends moreover, the 3D Printer is used in the SMB’s supply chain for the aspects of qualitative results such as a good quality of the products, the less cost of production, reduction of delay, and sustainability. Therefore, my approach has been to describe the 3D Printer driving change in small & mid-sized business supply chain processes. Meanwhile, the global supply chain is constantly confronted with multiple disruptive risks, whereby, the 3D Printer implementation can impact positively SMBs supply chain management. Furthermore, the 3D Printer makes shorter the SMB’s supply chain processes line beneficially, which will impact the Leadtime and increases the organization’s competitiveness, meanwhile, all remains the customer’s satisfaction. Therefore, to illustrate in this paper the 3D Printer as a business idea, I proceed to describe the SMBs’ supply chain, and the 3D Printer machine, it then describes to the readers, the effects of the 3D Printer on SMBs’ supply chain processes.

I concluded this thesis by emphasizing the feasibility of the addictive manufacturing implementation as a business idea, and as a solution that significantly reduced the cost of the organization’s production by improving the SMBs’ responsiveness and performance.