The impact of additive manufacturing on firms’ competitiveness: an empirical investigation

The purpose of this research is to study in depth the adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) inside industrial processes and its impact on firms’ competitiveness and performances. We conducted an explorative investigation among eight innovative B2B Italian firms that adopted AM technologies in order to enhance their capacity of designing and producing prototypes and components. In this paper, the impacts of this emerging technology in the manufacturing process and in their market strategy classifying them in: business strategy, customer, products, process and costs are examined. Then, based on the accordance and discrepancies arisen from the empirical research, some fundamental factors influencing firms’ competitiveness and performances has been found.