Exploring Challenges in the Integration of Additive Manufacturing

The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges in the integration of additive manufacturing (AM) that management faces in large manufacturing companies. Based on a case study consisting of a focus group, interview, informal meetings, direct and participant observations, company documents, reports, presentations, and field notes, seven dimensions containing 20 challenges were identified. The challenges were mentioned by 10 participants from four functional organizations. Thereafter, the 20 challenges were sorted into the three stages of integration. The results suggest a newly emerging theme that builds upon an existing framework. Organizational change was a unanimous concern by all functional organizations when contemplating integrating AM into the whole organization. Most of the challenges appear in the pre-integration stage and the post-integration stage compared to the integration stage which only highlighted two challenges. Future research should investigate solutions that contain proper actions and capabilities to overcome the identified challenges to enhance facilitating the integration of AM step-by-step.