Ricerc@Sapienza

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate additive manufacturing (AM) phenomenon extending previous research results by studying in-depth the economic sustainability of AM technology and bringing out the contextual factors that drive its superior performances in comparison with conventional manufacturing, and justify its adoption in rapid prototyping (RP) from an economic point of view. Design/methodology/approach: Data have been collected through a worldwide survey. Respondents were from 105 companies adopting the technology from 23 countries worldwide.