Organizational Changes and Barriers Related to The Implementation of Additive Manufacturing

Abstract: This study examines the organizational changes occurring in the implementation of additive manufacturing and identifies the barriers related to it. Since additive manufacturing is but recently being implemented on a large scale, there exists very little research on how it affects a company on an organizational level. Hence, we have conducted a qualitative study where we interview four different companies regarding their work with additive manufacturing. Further, we analyze our collected data together with complementary secondary data on the basis of theories regarding implementation of new technology. Our findings show several changes - both at an organizational and operational level - that occur in relation to the implementation of additive manufacturing. Furthermore, multiple barriers associated with individual unlearning have been identified. The findings of this research contributes to the field of new technology management by evaluating existing theories and to some extent extending them to be more applicable to this specific technology.