Trading digital-valued assets within cyber-physical manufacturing supply chains: a scoping review of additive manufacturing and digital trade

Additive manufacturing, a cyber-physical process that has gained popularity, can revolutionise manufacturing across various industries. By trading digital assets globally, additive manufacturing can support Industry 5.0 principles like sustainability or resilience. Thus, examining the potential for digital trade within cyber-physical manufacturing supply chains is crucial. This paper responds to the research challenge by providing an overview of digital trade (including e-commerce) within the additive manufacturing research landscape. The scoping review technique systematically investigated the extant literature and comprehensively summarised evidence based on their emergent themes and recurring content. The paper enumerates evidence of research efforts made so far within this field. The findings reveal that the topic is still not extensively studied despite this research field's growth. It has also been discovered that existing studies predominately focus on digitally-ordered processes rather than digitally-delivered processes, which primarily involve the trade of physical artefacts rather than cyber artefacts. These knowledge gaps highlight the opportunities for further research that will advance the field and significantly contribute to society’s transition into Industry 5.0. It is anticipated that this paper, by providing a comprehensive overview and identifying research gaps, will guide stakeholders (practitioners, researchers, academics, educators, and policymakers) with foundational knowledge on the subject and inspire more studies in this area, ultimately enhancing society’s readiness to embrace active trading of digital-valued assets within cyber-physical supply chains using additive manufacturing.