Novel digital on-demand manufacturing technologies provide a significant opportunity to support development of virtual warehousing and in turn improve supply chain performance. However, the implementation of virtual warehouse comes with a set of challenges, especially where the objective is to virtually warehouse standard or legacy parts that have been developed and verified initially for conventional (non-digital) manufacturing. In this paper, we explore the key elements required for successful implementation of a virtual warehouse for legacy parts based on a combination of part digitalization, on-demand manufacturing, and part validation. Our proposed framework for adoption of virtual warehouse includes development of a digital inventory which includes supply chain and manufacturability data, identification, and selection of suitable parts for on-demand manufacturing, selection of on-demand manufacturing technology, fit-for-purpose validation of the parts. Our framework is exemplified through a case study, and we conclude that the building of an effective virtual warehouse requires several enablers, including availability of digital data about technical and supply chain characteristics of parts, but also a suitable part identification tool. This part identification tool needs to be flexible to include comparison with reference parts already produced by different on-demand manufacturing technologies.

中文翻译：

---

通过数字化库存和按需制造实现虚拟仓储：案例研究


新型数字化按需制造技术为支持虚拟仓储的发展提供了重要机会，进而提高供应链绩效。然而，虚拟仓库的实施带来了一系列挑战，特别是当目标是虚拟仓库最初为传统（非数字）制造开发和验证的标准或遗留零件时。在本文中，我们基于零件数字化、按需制造和零件验证的组合，探讨了成功实施遗留零件虚拟仓库所需的关键要素。我们提出的采用虚拟仓库的框架包括开发数字库存，其中包括供应链和可制造性数据、识别和选择适合按需制造的零件、选择按需制造技术、适合用途的验证零件。我们的框架通过案例研究进行了举例说明，我们得出的结论是，构建有效的虚拟仓库需要多个推动因素，包括有关零件技术和供应链特征的数字数据的可用性，以及合适的零件识别工具。该零件识别工具需要灵活，以便能够与不同的按需制造技术生产的参考零件进行比较。