Abstract
Advanced manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) are rapidly revolutionizing business processes within European and Italian SMEs. A clear example is represented by the success of 3D printers that are achieving a huge impact on the market from both the companies and the customers’ point of view. This paper aims at investigating how manufacturing and logistic processes have changed drastically in the last years according to the introduction of the above-mentioned advanced manufacturing technologies. Recent academic literature is focusing on the integration of any advanced technology with other infrastructures and technologies already implemented in a company. By considering 3D printing adoption, both in the product design and in the production management processes, it turns out to be necessary a proper integration with other technologies such as the software used to design a product (CAD) and the manufacturing control cameras adopted to control the production process. At the same time, a proper strategic alignment has to be assured between the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies and the company innovation strategy. Consistency and coherence among all the strategic decisions must be guaranteed in order to create and increase the company business value. Furthermore, the acquisition of new assets, either tangible (e.g. 3D printers) or intangible (e.g. know how), has to be properly integrated with other tangible and intangible resources in order to combine them in the best way, so that the goal of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage would be reached.