Exploring the barriers in medical additive manufacturing from an emerging economy

Abstract

AbstractSustainable medical additive manufacturing (SMAM) is becoming the next Industry 4.0 technology to revolutionise the medical industry. The adoption of SMAM offers several advantages and brings a paradigm shift in complex manufacturing geometry with improved quality, speed, cost, and sustainability in medical sectors. This research aims to identify the adoption barriers of SMAM in the Indian context. The research design involves two-step procedures: First, a literature review was conducted to determine the barriers to SMAM technology adoption. Later, these were validated by a panel of experts from industry and academia. Second, a hybrid ISM-DEMATEL methodology was deployed to establish and evaluate the cause-effect relationship between the validated barriers. Our findings suggest that among the identified barriers, infrastructural barriers were the most important for adopting SMAM in India, followed by a lack of long-term planning, operational barriers, and supply-demand barriers. Further, it also identified net cause driving barriers, including financial barriers, legal and policy barriers, technological barriers, and management barriers to SMAM adoption. As the adoption of SMAM offers several advantages, including a shift in complex manufacturing geometry with improved quality, speed, cost, and sustainability in medical sectors, these findings assume significance and will help decision-makers overcome complex barriers to SMAM adoption.Keywords: Sustainableadditive manufacturing3D printingadoption barriersmedicalSDG 9: Industryinnovation and infrastructure Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsVirendra Kumar VermaVirendra Kumar Verma is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply chain management at the Alliance School of Business, Alliance University, Bengaluru, India. He holds a Ph.D. and MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Mumbai, India (formerly NITIE). He completed his M.Tech and B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. He possesses 12 years of valuable experience in the fields of industry, consulting, and teaching in various organisations as a manager of purchase, supply chain, business consultant, and assistant professor. He has significantly contributed to the field by publishing numerous papers on operations, supply chains, and additive manufacturing, in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals.Sachin S. KambleSachin S. Kamble is a Professor of Strategy (Operations and Supply Chain Management) at EDHEC Business School, Lille, France. He holds a Ph.D. in Management, an MBA in Operations, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Before joining EDHEC, he worked for the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Mumbai, India (formerly NITIE). His teaching and research interests include Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Big Data Analytics, Industry 4.0, and Digital transformation. He has over 50 authored/co-authored publications in referred international journals, including high-impact journals.L. GanapathyL. Ganapathy is a senior Professor and Area Chair of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Mumbai, India (formerly NITIE). He has completed his M.Tech and Ph.D. from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. Before joining IIM Mumbai, he worked for IIT, Kharagpur, India. His teaching and research interests are optimisation methods, project management, supply chain analytics, and logistics management. He has held senior management positions, including Dean (Research), Dean (Academic), and member of the Board of Governors at NITIE. He can be reached at ganapathyl@gmail.com.Venkatesh ManiDr. Venkatesh Mani is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, CANADA. He possesses over 24 years of academic and industrial experience, of which over a decade he had served in fortune 500 companies in various senior management roles. Prior to Asper, he worked as an Associate Professor, Montpellier Business School, France. He is a visiting professor of Digital Transformation in IIM Bodhgaya, TAPMI India, ISCTE Business School, Lisbon, and University of Porto. He holds his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). His research examines digital transformation challenges, failures and learnings from global corporations, especially digital transformation of global supply chains, sustainability, and modern slavery from emerging economies. He has contributed many research articles in referred journals: Harvard Business Review, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Transportation Research Part A, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Annals of Operations Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, & Production Planning and Control, among others.Amine BelhadiAmine Belhadi is an Associate Professor at Rabat Business School, International University of Rabat, Morocco. He also worked as a research associate at Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco, and as an associate consultant in the chemical sector. His expertise is in Industrial Engineering, particularly Lean Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Industry 4.0, and Sustainability. His publications have appeared in international peer-reviewed journals, including many prestigious journals like the International Journal of Production Economics, Supply Chain Management: an International Journal, International Journal of Production Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Journal of Small Business Management, Computers and Industrial Engineering, Production Planning and Control and Journal of Cleaner Production.Yangyan ShiYangyan Shi is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), a faculty member of Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, and ‘Tianjin Visiting Distinguished Professor’. His research has emerged in OSCM journals, such as TRE, IJOPM, IJPE, IJPR, PPC, IEEE-TEM, BSE, TFSC, ANOR, IJPDLM, JBIM, JCP, IJDRR, IJLM, TP, MP, etc.