Additive Manufacturing in SMEs: A Viable Path to Growth and Competitiveness?

The aim of this paper is to analyze Additive Manufacturing (AM) in SMEs to investigate its effects on competitiveness and performance. Thanks to the analysis of an Italian gold jewelry district’s companies, the paper examines the effects related to AM on companies, by highlighting empirical evidences usable for other industry contexts. Thanks to latent content analysis, six conceptual themes have emerged, concerning the main effects of such an innovative technology on companies, namely process innovation, customer satisfaction, costs, revenues, profits, and sustainable competitive advantage. Thanks to AM customers’ demand and payment availability have increased and, as a result, evident advantages on firms’ performance have been recorded. The introduction of AM has increased the firms’ competitiveness by strengthening customer satisfaction and revenues, and may be therefore interpreted as a viable growing strategy for SMEs.