Material efficient supply chains through decentralised Additive Manufacturing for the Swedish export industry

Research Project, 2023 – 2024

Purpose and goal
MATER-AM address urgent needs within society and Swedish export companies for material efficient, resilient supply chains. Through Additive Manufacturing (AM), the project aims to develop digital spare part distribution, built on decentralized, demand-driven production and circular material flows. The goal is to drive the transformation by quantifying its value, developing solutions, and prototypes that enable AM-driven decentralized supply chains, which will be realized in a subsequent project as a full-scale international system demonstrator.

Expected results and effects
MATER-AM-projektet will contribute with: - Knowledge of decentralized AM production based on different scenarios for regional production and material flows linked to spare parts supply consisting of both metallic and polymeric materials. - Knowledge of legal and export-related aspects of exports from digital warehouses in Sweden combined with regional production outside Sweden. - A tool (prototype) to calculate the value of decentralized production at component level based on cost, lead time and sustainability aspects based on the SPARSAM method.

Planned approach and implementation
The project is divided into the following four work packages: WP1 - Project Management & Dissemination WP2 - Prototyping and analysis of scenario 1, 3 and 4 supply chains WP3 - Prototyping digitalization of material efficient supply chains WP4 - System Demonstrator planning The consortium has an outspoken plan for utilizing the results from this project, where the industrial the actors will play a central role in the introduction.