Application of additive manufacturing in challenges posed by COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has brought a lot of turbulence and instability among manufacturing organizations. This pandemic has affected all three types of manufacturing operations- subtractive, additive and forming manufacturing processes. In this paper we have discussed how additive manufacturing has played a role in this time of crisis. There has been an increased adoption of additive manufacturing to overcome the demand created by this pandemic. The number of actors in additive supply chain have reduced and thus in the time of epidemics that has been a boom and has helped manufacturers relying on additive manufacturing to be agile and react in nearly no time to the requirements. The same has been found its use primarily in manufacturing healthcare facilities in short notices along with producing parts of medical equipment like ventilators.