A Systematic Literature Review and Prospects for the Additive Manufacturing in the Creative Industries

In the Creative Industries (CI), Additive Manufacturing is one of the new areas of investigation and without doubt has the potential for disruptive innovation capable to transform the traditional manufacturing paradigm and increase the largely accepted and required shift towards the design, conceptualisation, and adoption of sustainable Additive Manufacturing (AM) process. The objective of this study is to conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to identify and describe different publications that can contribute to additive manufacturing in the creative industry’s knowledge base. The purpose is to identify the publication trends that largely explain the adoption the additive manufacturing in the manufacturing process of handicraft industry product literature through the description of the main discourse rising newly in the field. This research contributes to filling the gap in terms of SLR on the importance of CI and AM for industrial development conducted by bibliometric analysis. The results of this systematic review revealed that: notwithstanding the increasing concern about the growth of the CI, issues related to product innovation and technological development of the industries are understudied; there is promising literature for the development of contextual creative industry practice which researchers are dedicating their works. However, a further focus of research on the fashion, textile, architecture, sculpture, and archeological sites has emerged in the more specialised literature.