The implications of additive manufacturing technology adoption for supply chain resilience: A systematic search and review

ABSTRACT

As a disruptive digital technology, adopting additive manufacturing impacts the state and structural dynamics of supply chains, thus affecting their capability to be resilient. Supply chain resilience is essential for business continuity and dealing with unforeseen disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, no research has exclusively investigated the implications of adopting additive manufacturing technology for supply chain resilience, and this study aims to overcome this knowledge gap by using the existing literature and drawing on the dynamic capabilities view. Hence, a systematic search of the literature followed by a critical review of the gathered evidence from 87 peer-reviewed journal papers is performed, leading to the generation of propositions on how additive manufacturing adoption impacts the state of the supply chain, thus influencing certain supply chain capabilities and vulnerabilities that affect supply chain resilience. These propositions provide a research agenda to empirically examine how adopting different processes and applications of additive manufacturing technology can affect supply chain resilience in different industries. Additionally, this study puts forward a detailed framework that indicates how and to what extent adopting additive manufacturing can influence the supply chain capabilities and vulnerabilities that underlie supply chain resilience. While the results suggest that adopting additive manufacturing is expected to improve supply chain resilience by mainly enhancing the state of the supply chain and positively influencing certain supply chain capabilities, it can also cause certain supply chain vulnerabilities to arise, which seem to be interrelated with some of the present additive manufacturing adoption barriers. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.