3D Printing to Boost Competitive Advantage of

¶ … 3D Printing to Boost Competitive Advantage of American Manufacturing It is crucial today to get small businesses in a position of stronger competitive advantage in order to truly stabilize the lagging economy. In order to compete with enterprise businesses that work with enormous economies of scale, small businesses need direction and innovation to try to compete. Thus, I will be writing to Petriot, an organization that still manufacturers consumer goods here in the United States. The organization manufactures consumer products of all types, from tools to home goods.

It prides itself on producing quality goods domestically in order to help try to spur growth in the American economy. For the subject of the report, I will recommend implementing the use of 3D printing in the manufacturing of the organization's products. There are a number of 3D printing technologies, including additive manufacturing. This allows designers and manufacturers to print real objects at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional manufacturing methods.

The research shows that this is an extremely cost effective investment, as the long-term potential is enormous. Companies like Petroit can print their own tools and even entire products at a fraction of the cost, thus giving them a greater competitive advantage that is better suited to achieve the company's mission. Today, most manufacturing is being sent overseas in order to be cost efficient.

However, this costs American jobs and has shifted the source of manufacturing abroad after decades of the United States being one of the top manufacturing companies in the world. The company's "mission is to strengthen the American economy and promote the growth of American business by selling only products that are made in the U.S.A. United We Stand" (Petroit, 2014).

By implementing the use of 3D printing to augment their manufacturing processes, Petroit can achieve this mission and gain a crucial competitive advantage it needs in order to best compete with enterprise companies working with massive overseas manufacturing. In order to best generate a recommendation for increasing the company's competitive advantage, I will have to investigate the literature on 3D printing.

There are a number of types that differ in capabilities and initial investment costs, so it will be important to be able to recommend particular printers that Petroit can benefit from. Moreover, the search will need to include an investigation of the literature to understand how 3D printing works in order to provide small, American businesses the competitive advantage they need to stay ahead of the curve. Therefore, both academic and professional resources will be needed to best set up the recommendation.

These resources will be gathered using a survey method to review the literature and uncover major concepts and patterns that would lead to a stronger recommendation for Petroit. In order to evaluate the data being collected, I will use pricing points and ROI statistic figures to generate strong empirical evidence for presenting 3D printing as a viable service that Petroit could benefit tremendously.