Public and private goods in the development of additive manufacturing capacity

Abstract

The promotion of additive manufacturing (AM) as a set of enabling technologies has been a prominent feature of new policies seeking to revitalize manufacturing in developed economies. Because of its differences from traditional manufacturing technologies, small businesses, in particular, face high costs in adopting AM methods. How can governments assist small firms and their innovation ecosystems to make significant leaps in enabling technologies? This paper conceptualizes the challenges faced by groups of small enterprises adopting new technologies and a decentralized policy effort to systematically increase the use of advanced manufacturing technologies. In Canada, funding used by community colleges to create applied research centers has been intended to establish anchors for local “industrial commons” around advanced manufacturing methods. By providing both information and working capital to private sector partners, these community college programs should ideally mitigate challenges to the adoption of AM technologies—the so-called “valley of death”—in local ecosystems. There are many successful individual cases of partnership (i.e., private goods); however, this bottom-up approach seems to fail both as a means of promoting vibrant industrial commons (i.e., public goods) and as a coherent national strategy. We trace the challenges of this approach to principal-agent problems associated with layering new programs upon existing organizations, the density of program participants, and the presence of appropriate technologies.

Advanced manufacturing technology adoption and innovation: A systematic literature review on barriers, enablers, and innovation types

“…Evidence on additive manufacturing adopters reveals threat to intellectual property (IP) alongside the risk of infringing copyrights for the design and printing of products (Chan et al, 2018). From a policy level, several studies analyse the lack of government support emphasising inconsistent adoption policies (Baldwin and Lin, 2002) especially for additive manufacturing readiness (Durach et al, 2017;Dwivedi et al, 2017;Samford et al, 2017). In line with this, Baldwin and Lin, ( 2002) contexualise a lack of information for AMTs within markets where information is imperfect.…”

“…One study focused specifically on AMT adoption programmes supporting organisational changes, training, and the formulation of an adoption plan (Arvanitis et al, 2002). In the case of additive manufacturing, these programmes facilitated the development of capabilities to introduce new products, processes, and services (Samford et al, 2017). Two studies report findings on how relocation of manufacturing plants from offshore countries was stimulated by both government and private entities, in order to leverage market advantages and local resources (Ancarani et al, 2019;Dachs et al, 2019).…”

The role of university‐industry research centers in embedding foreign subsidiaries: Insights from automotive research and development in Ontario

“…The funding agencies assume that the informal and flexible mobilization of actors will result in partnerships that serve regional interests (Hellström, ). But bottom‐up processes of strategy formulation are often conflictual and unaligned with policy priorities (Estensoro & Larrea, ; Samford, Warrian, & Goracinova, ; Sotarauta, ; Sotarauta, ). The CRCs might focus on research areas of marginal relevance to a partner or the region .…”

Additive Manufacturing and Business Models: Current Knowledge and Missing Perspectives

“…describe platforms or communities for design, examine technology transfers from universities, or emphasize the difficulties for small firms to adopt the technology (Birtchnell et al, 2017;Flath et al, 2017;Samford et al, 2017;West & Kuk, 2016). The limited attention paid to key partners implies that additive manufacturing would not require any major changes to core competences of firms or the companies would be equipped to change their current competences to fit with future needs.…”