Mass Production Creates Supply Chain Nightmares. Let’s Prevent Them.
By Dr. Cora Leibig, Founder & CEO
Whether it’s skyrocketing egg prices in the grocery aisle or an automobile purchase that’s been delayed for months on end due to the chip shortage, supply chain challenges have never been more obvious to consumers. But the problem started long ago — even before the pandemic laid bare the shortcomings of mass production.
The Supply Chain Is Too Complicated
When you witness the coordination involved in the shutdown and startup of an integrated production facility that’s facing an impending hurricane, for example, it becomes all too clear how many moving parts must work in concert to keep our economy running. It’s a veritable million-piece symphony played by somewhat-coordinated manufacturers. And some days, it sounds more like a middle-school orchestra.
When I worked in the chemical industry producing raw materials, I witnessed the intricacies of supply chain networks from the source. The extent of interdependency astounded me. Material transformation usually involves at least three steps — if not more — and as many vendors. To produce a rubber gasket, formulators must acquire the raw materials and incorporate additives, such as color. Then the compound goes to a rolled-goods manufacturer that fabricates sheets suitable for cutting. From there, the rolls are sent on to a stamper that will create the final piece. (That’s all before the component is assembled into a final product, distributed and warehoused.)
Each step involves another transaction, and another shipment. By the time it’s sold, a raw material may well have traveled the world by truck, train and boat. Our products have seen more of the world than most people! Consequently, a problem high up in the supply chain has ripple effects that can quickly cripple the whole system.
Material Innovation Is Tricky
As a materials innovator, I want to untangle this messy web of production. However, it’s a complicated problem. While the supply chain supports innovations that drive down the cost of our products, it’s far more difficult to innovate with improved materials, even when it would improve sustainability or product functionality.
The problem? A single material change does not move directly to the products that require innovation. Theoretically, a novel material could meet the needs of a specialized product. Too often, though, material selections are take-it-or-leave-it. Want rubber sheet with nonstandard thickness? Too bad! Plastic sheeting that’s not 6 feet by 8 feet? Try again. Compounded with a new plastic or additive system that hasn’t yet taken the market by storm, that ideal sheeting is simply preposterous.
New materials require traction in the larger converted-materials market, and this traction must be obvious before investments are made to make the product cost effective. Therefore, most materials innovations that do penetrate the market are those that reduce cost: Lower price is one product feature that an entire market can agree on.
Mass Production Is a Problem
This snarled system is a direct consequence of mass production. Since Henry Ford introduced the Model T, industrial production has squeezed every penny out of the benefits of standardization. Once you have a machine designed to repeat the same action very efficiently, like an injection molder, you need to keep that machine running. Otherwise, it doesn’t pay for itself. Sure, an injection molder can do a 1,000-part run. But setting up that run and interrupting a 1,000,000-part series is a money-losing venture.
As a result, we have machines that can run quickly — but only when we minimize variations and fulfill long production runs. Put a few of these material transformations in series, and soon you have a system of interdependent specialty producers, none motivated to move a new product concept from the back of the supply chain to the front. If one of those specialty producers suffers an interruption, the whole system chokes. Furthermore, even though a mass-production machine like an injection molder can produce a massive quantity of parts in a day, the time and steps associated with getting those parts into the final assemblies and customers’ hands can take months and multiply costs.
3D Printing Simplifies the Supply Chain
As 3D printing became more established in the early 2010s, I realized that the technology was within reach to truly change the material-transformation supply chain. To do so, 3D printing still needs to meet some requirements:
Materials and printing methods must yield parts strong enough to meet modern performance standards.
The printing method must work with a broad range of substrates.
Print-material delivery systems must be suitable for basic on-demand material variations.
Printing equipment must be cost effective.
When all of these components are present, suppliers can remove multiple steps in the material-transformation supply chain, offering more material innovation and variation for final parts than ever before. The distance between material suppliers, part producers and customers will be shorter, both literally and figuratively. Rather than excessive interdependence, the supply chain will be more direct, with reduced inventories and logistics.
A New World Is Here
I’m pleased that Chromatic 3D Materials has made great strides toward this vision of detangled supply chains:
Parts made out of Chromatic materials perform as well as those made with incumbent production.
ChromaScan, Chromatic’s proprietary method of printing directly onto substrates, enables customers to eliminate both production and assembly steps.
The multi-material printing and variable material properties we first envisioned with the name “Chromatic” are now a reality with the RX-AM™ platform.
Our 3D printers are affordable enough to invest in an army of them, as you would with injection-molding equipment. This means it’s feasible to out-produce injection-molding equipment while facilitating cost-efficient local or distributed production.
To return to our rubber gasket example, Chromatic drastically consolidates the material supply chain. We customize materials in house, then manufacture the final part. There’s no need for intermediate sheeting, nor the extra logistics required, such as coordinating with (and shipping to and from) a fabricator.
The pandemic pushed our supply chains to the breaking point, and the years since have continued to reveal the weaknesses of these production systems. Right now, Chromatic’s customer pipeline is full of major brands from multiple sectors. They want to use our technology to completely overhaul their production methods, product designs and distribution channels.
At Chromatic, we’re on the brink of creating a world that’s no longer stymied by limited innovation, offshore production and shortages that have massive repercussions. Join us here.
