The impact of additive manufacturing on production location decisions: a case study in Belgium and the Netherlands

Abstract

This study investigates how the implementation of additive manufacturing (AM) in production affects companies' production location decisions, a research gap present in the literature on AM and global value chains. Based on qualitative case studies at five AM manufacturing companies, active in Belgium or the Netherlands, we conclude that the implementation of AM for production activities increases the importance of access to technical knowledge, agglomeration economies, within-firm knowledge spillovers and customer proximity in production location decisions. On the other hand, AM decreases the importance of access to intermediate inputs and does not affect the importance of labour costs by shifting labour from production to pre- and post-production activities, rather than substituting it. Today, AM's overall effect on location decisions is still relatively small since technology is mostly used as a complementary production method next to traditional manufacturing, rather than as a substitute. Nevertheless, the recent pandemic crisis showed companies the risks of being dependent on supplies from remote areas, which may accelerate the implementation of AM in the future.