Additive manufacturing. An immense opportunity or a new production and marketing trend?

Several are nowadays the technologies considered determinant enablers of relevant changes in societies and economies. One of these is Additive Manufacturing. Additive Manufacturing has been widely hailed as a revolution, hyped by the covers of publications from Wired, The Economist, Harvard Business Review and other important magazines. It has been defined as “a historic window of opportunity to rewrite the rules of industry”.1 An outstanding opportunity to reconfigure the production and business models without exploiting the already depleted earth resources. But how can Additive Manufacturing enable more sustainable models of production and consumption? It is undeniable that AM provides a clear insight into impressive potentials and its usage on production is slowly showing a remarkable leap forward. Several are the sectors, industrial and non-industrial, that are slowly approaching the new technologies encompassed by Additive Manufacturing. In this paper We will therefore describe the unquestionable benefits gained through the adoption of the different AM technologies. Advantages such as material saving, design flexibility, possibility to create complex geometries, the high level of personalization and precision gained are the factors that are pushing these technologies to a tipping point.