Examining Replacement Part Supply Chain links with Intellectual Property Issues when using Additive Manufacturing

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Additive manufacturing has made headlines in the research and practice community, especially for making or servicing replacement parts in what is sometimes called “digital spare parts”. Although this practice may not be considered new, the supply chain disruption introduced during global pandemics and conflicts helped confirm the viability of using additive manufacturing for replacement part applications; however, among the issues that are associated with this practice concerns about intellectual property can often become an unforeseen barrier to surmount when dealing with managing the value of intangible assets in supply chains; which have been highlighted by some scholars in literature. Despite this, the extent of additive manufacturing processes’ exposures to intellectual property compromise in replacement part applications and the likelihood of stakeholders addressing these vulnerabilities in the supply chain context remain empirically underexplored. Thus, this paper seeks to fill that void by surveying the views of experts in the field and analysing their response patterns concerning perspectives established in the literature. The empirical findings are expected to inform key stakeholders on prevalent concern orientations towards these issues and make the necessary adjustments when considering intellectual property management for additive manufacturing use in replacement parts applications within the context of supply chains.