Digital Transformation and Additive Manufacturing

The digital transformation in manufacturing, making processes fully automated and interconnected, using artificial intelligence, is transforming the industry, with impacts in the society in general. The additive manufacturing technology is now a core component of modern smart manufacturing and is changing the products’ life cycle with impacts in the way that products are designed, prototyped, manufactured, and used. Additive manufacturing technologies are enabling new opportunities in business models, namely in production and in customization, and, also, in various aspects that affect people’s lives. In spite of additive manufacturing technology currently attracting a growing number of companies, organizations, and individuals, its challenges and impacts seem to remain unknown. Exploring the literature that relates additive manufacturing and digital transformation, this chapter seeks to provide new insights into the impacts of additive manufacturing. It shows that additive manufacturing is playing an increasingly important role in the industrial–technological change, and that has effects on other activities and the people’s life.