The Implications of 3D Printing for the Global Logistics Industry

Chris Saynor the CEO of eyefortransport comments on a new white paper written by John Manners-Bell the CEO of Transport Intelligence and Ken Lyon the CEO of Virtual Partners.
 
According to the White Paper authors; ‘3D Printing’, or ‘additive manufacturing’ as it is also known, has the potential to become the biggest single disruptive phenomenon to impact global industry since assembly lines were introduced in early twentieth century Americ
 
I largely agree with their statement, and indeed would highlight the impact on Spare/Service-Parts Logistics as being the most pivotal when it comes to the impact on LSPs and how this technology could revolutionize a company’s own internal spare parts management structure.
 
John and Ken write:
 
>>>The Service Parts Logistics sector would be one of the first to be affected. At present billions are spent on holding stock to supply products as diverse as cars to x-ray machines. In some cases huge amount of redundancy is built into supply chains to enable parts to be dispatched in a very short timescale to get machines up and running again as fast as possible. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand the benefits for a service parts engineer of being able to download a part design from an online library, 3D Print it and then fit it within a very short time window. This would make global and national parts warehouses as well as forward stock locations unnecessary to fulfilling customer needs.
 
The Service Parts Logistics industry will be either transformed or decimated by 3D manufacturing – or perhaps both! With small 3D Printing machines available, operations in remote locations – or even in an engineer’s van – will only need electronic libraries of designs available to them on a local computer. They can then call up the design of the spare part required and immediately print it. Obsolete parts could simply be scanned in 3D, fixed in the computer’s memory and the new part printed. The implications for inventory are clear.<<<
 
For me I think the authors hit the nail on the head with regard to the chance for LSP’s to become early adopters…imagine the 3PL that offers to decimate the spare parts warehousing and inventory costs for its clients, by using 3D printing instead – purchasing the 3D equipment, managing the process and delivering the spare part. Another interesting area for Spare Parts 3D printing is remote facilities such as mines, ships, oil-rigs, space stations (less chance of LSPs being involved here though) where it is a lengthy and expensive place to get parts to.

Quelle: eyefortransport

Portal: www.logistik-express.com