Quantifying the impact of concrete 3D printing on the construction supply chain

3D printing technology has demonstrated great potential in reducing the complexity of managing a construction supply chain (CSC). This paper investigates the consequences of incorporating 3D printing (3DP) in a traditional construction supply chain when using a two-story office building project in the UAE context as the basis for the investigation. The following steps were implemented: (1) developed frameworks and processes for the traditional construction supply chain (T-CSC) and the construction supply chain with 3D printing (3DP-CSC), (2) simulated the processes using the experts' experience data regarding the required effort in terms of construction resources to design and build a standard office building project, and (3) obtained and analyzed simulation results to compare the two CSCs. It was observed that 3DP-CSC experiences a 21% higher cumulative effort and a 6% reduction in the production rate to complete the project when compared to T-CSC. The simulation results should not be directly extrapolated or generalized for different CSCs in different sizes or types but should be considered an integral part of construction innovations. Additional simulations will be conducted in future work to demonstrate the performance of 3DP-CSC for projects with complex geometries.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the consequences of incorporating 3D printing in a traditional construction supply chain and demonstrates its potential in reducing complexity. The study uses a two-story office building project in the UAE as a case study and compares the traditional construction supply chain with the construction supply chain utilizing 3D printing. Simulation results show that the 3D printed construction supply chain requires 21% more effort and experiences a 6% reduction in production rate compared to the traditional supply chain. The findings should be considered as part of construction innovation and future research will focus on projects with complex geometries.