Additive Manufacturing Technology: An Insight into Re-Shaping the Creative Industry

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is re-shaping the manufacturing world and the creative industry is one of the sectors that is greatly affected by it. The demand for new products, designs, climate change, sustainability drives across the countries along with need for safe and secure manufacturing have brought the spotlight back on AM. Needless to say, designers and creative heads of businesses are looming towards this emerging technology and are adopting it to enhance their production lines and fulfilling their promises for being a sustainable enterprise. AM can assist people involved in the manufacturing sector in the creative industry to use the technology to their advantage and compete with more technology focused manufacturing sectors. On the other hand, emergence of studies on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and its importance for all businesses worldwide is gaining momentum. Thus, it’s imperative to study AM linked with ESG, to understand the benefits and challenges associated with this emerging technology and management framework that is reshaping industries. This paper is aimed to bridge the gap between creative, business and technology sectors in terms of AM. It is focused on the benefits of AM and why creative thinkers should use it more to generate sustainable ideas. It addresses the bottlenecks in the manufacturing sector and how AM can be used to mitigate those effectively. It also aims to understand what the barriers to entry of AM in the creative industry are, how awareness and knowledge penetration can be overcome, how institutes can design their modules and include AM to shape future generation of creators.