The Additive Manufacturing Operations Management Maturity: a Closed or an Open Issue?

Abstract

Abstract The term Additive Manufacturing (AM) refers to different kinds of technologies and applications that have in common the ability to build an item starting from a 3D CAD model of the component and by adding materials layer by layer until the product is realised. This paper aims at analysing the existing literature dealing with the use of Metal Additive Manufacturing (MAM) machines for the mass customisation and try to figure out the main issues faced by the international literature about the operations management (OM) issues applied to the MAM. The paper is focusing on several topics such as the technology selection methods, the scheduling and production planning, the spare parts management, the supply chain management and the impact of AM processes on the environmental sustainability of the production systems. The research motivation is also reinforced by the new AM technologies such as Binder Jetting and Direct Energy Deposition (DED) that are promising to ensure deposition rate higher than Selective Laser Melting (SLM) machines and smaller investments