Title: A hybrid approach to examine the potential of additive manufacturing to cope with supply chain disruptions during COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Rajat Latt; Rajiv Kumar Sharma

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Hamirpur, 177005, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Hamirpur, 177005, India

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has created lots of uncertainties, one of which is dealing with the ripple effect (supply chain disruptions) across multiple industries (like automotive, healthcare, aerospace, etc.). This work proposes a hybrid approach for identifying various enablers across three supply chain decision-making phases (strategic, tactical and operational) that aid in the organisation's implementation of additive manufacturing. The work is divided into three phases: first, the variables are identified through a literature review; second, the questionnaire's validity and reliability are checked; and third, the variables are prioritised using fuzzy entropy and fuzzy technique of order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods, which convert linguistic values (obtained via questionnaire survey) to crisp values for the research variable dimensions. The outcomes of this discussion assist managers in making more informed and effective decisions about how to implement additive manufacturing in their organisation in order to minimise supply chain disruptions.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; supply chain disruptions; fuzzy entropy; fuzzy TOPSIS; strategic; tactical; operational.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2024.135893

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2024 Vol.47 No.1, pp.82 - 104

Received: 10 May 2022
Accepted: 13 May 2022
Published online: 09 Jan 2024 *

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