Question

Pick one of the following disruptive technologies and explain what it is, and how it is being used to reinvent the supply chain: 3D Printing, RFID, Drones, or Robotics.

Answer 1

The type of technology I would like to talk about is 3D printing. This technology is also known as additive manufacturning and is a process where the three dimensional digital models are used to create or manufacture any physical object by adding and including many thin layers of materials sunsequently which would help to lower the cost by cutting and reducing the extra waste. 3D Printing is one of the most used technologies in the market especially for the supply chain management as it reduces the difficulties to establish the things and integrate the efforts of various departments of assembling. Thus, the importance for this technology in supply chain are:

1. Reduce Complexities: The 3D printing can be used to reduce the amount of complexities that the manufacturing organisation used to have by producing parts and then assembling them and then finally used to supply them to the organisations. Now, all these works could be done handy on only one 3D printing machine which makes the takes easier.

2. Saving production cost: Apart from making the tasks easier, it also saves the cost of transfering and storing various parts of the goods and the assembly costs too. Now, all of these costs are saved for the supplier to easily provide the goods to the organsiations.

3. Improving time to market: At last, as time is being saved because of the above mentioned points, more time could be invested by the suppliers on other essential suppl chain management functions like procurement of goods and marketing their goods to the organisations for better results.