Análisis de Complejidad

Throughout the review of the literature thus far, the literature has shown technology to be an enabler in allowing organisations to design for high variety. Whilst much of the literature has focussed on implementation of the technology in organisations manufacturing business units (e.g., Mellor et al, 2015), Dinges et al (2015) recently presented 3D printing as a technology of the future for servitized business models and it is this technology that is of particular interest to this thesis. An example of how this technology could allow organisations to focus on use is described by Holmstrom & Partanen (2014) in the previous section. However, whilst

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illustrated, it did not highlight why it is an enabler for designing for high variety when compared with traditional manufacturing and why traditional manufacturing restricted organisations ability to design for high variety.

3D printing, also known as additive layer manufacturing (ALM), is a digital manufacturing method that produces three dimensional objects additively. It builds a physical component layer by layer from a digital file (Weller et al, 2015). This is illustrated in the following figure.

Figure 2.9. Process of 3D printing from digital file to complete component (Source: www.eos.info/addive_manufacturing).

When compared to traditional manufacturing, 3D printing has a number of characteristics that make it a suitable technology to enable organisations to implement a designing for high variety strategy. Namely, the literature finds that 3D printing has the following benefits when compared to traditional manufacturing:

 Small and medium lot sizes are feasible;

 Economies of one enables greater levels of customisation;

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 Geometric and design freedom as the production is not constrained by tooling;

 Reduction in supply chain complexity;

 Can produce rapid tooling for small batches at a more affordable price; and  Customisation is driven by software (Holmstrom et al, 2010; Petrick &

Simpson, 2013; Huang et al, 2013).

The final point is of particular interest to this thesis as it highlights the digital nature of the technology. A direct benefit of not requiring tooling to produce a component means the final output is driven by software which has two primary benefits. First, it allows a variety of customised components to be produced in a single production run at no extra cost (Holmstrom et al, 2010; Petrick & Simpson, 2013) and second, it allows the binding of form and function to be delayed until latent needs emerge so that organisations can focus on product instances (Holmstrom & Partanen, 2014; Ng, 2014). This point is particularly important when discussing the ‘freezing’ of design specifications. As the technology allows a delayed binding of form and function and does not require tooling that is expensive to produce, the final output does not have to be specified so early in the production cycle. Whilst it is anticipated in most industries the majority of a product will be produced via traditional technology (a standardised platform), 3D printing could be used to compliment this through the production of individualised components for specific customers’ (variety and customisation at the point of use) (Holmstrom & Partenan, 2014). The result of the digital characteristics of 3D printing means these individual components do not have to be defined in the original specification that is released to the production team early on. Instead, these parts can be designed and

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implemented late in the lifecycle of the product and in response to customer use information. This concept is similar to the notion of incomplete product proposed by Yoo et al (2010) and product instances proposed by Holmstrom & Partenan (2014). For both, the main physical platform is standardised, but the digital layer is customisable through life and may be produced in ways the original specification did not anticipate. Thus, as highlighted by Henfridsson et al (2014), digital technology affords the ability to extend design flexibility through life whilst retaining scale economies in a way that was not achievable with traditional manufacturing. A further interesting point that can be derived from this discussion is the ability to react to customer sticky information. Delaying the binding of form and function allows organisations to be more flexible through life. In being able to react to customer information in use (Holmstrom & Partenan, 2014), 3D printing means organisations can react better to changing requirements through life as the final design is not restricted by fixed and expensive tooling and moulds used in traditional manufacturing. Therefore, technological advances afford urgency in terms of speed of change as discussed by Schilling (2000). Thus, 3D printing is a digital manufacturing process and is doing to manufacturing what digital did to phones, video and music (Ihl & Piller, 2016) with Ng (2014) suggesting it could be used to design incomplete products. Finally, Reeves (2009) found that increased connectivity would only improve the business case for 3D printing as digital files can be used to enable distributed manufacturing.

In sum, this section shows that 3D printing is a useful technology for designing for high variety contexts given the benefits that come from the unbounded materiality of digital technology. This is evident from the study conducted by Holmstrom &

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Partanen (2014) and has widely been conceptualised by a number of other authors (e.g., Ng, 2013; 2014; Ihl & Piller, 2016).