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Because of the significant differences in the features and requirements of specific products and the capabilities of various additive manufacturing (AM) solutions, selecting the most appropriate AM technology can be challenging. This study aims to propose a method to solve the complex process selection in 3D printing applications, especially by creating a new multicriteria decision-making tool that takes the direct certainty of each comparison to reflect the decision-maker’s desire effectively.

The methodology proposed includes five steps: defining the AM technology selection decision criteria and constraints, extracting available AM parameters from the database, evaluating the selected AM technology parameters based on the proposed decision-making methodology, improving the accuracy of the decision by adopting newly proposed weighting scheme and selecting optimal AM technologies by integrating information gathered from the whole decision-making process.

To demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of the proposed methodology, this case study describes a detailed industrial application in rapid investment casting that applies the weightings to a tailored AM technologies and materials database to determine the most suitable AM process. The results showed that the proposed methodology could solve complicated AM process selection problems at both the design and manufacturing stages.

This research proposes a unique multicriteria decision-making solution, which employs an exclusive weightings calculation algorithm that converts the decision-maker's subjective priority of the involved criteria into comparable values. The proposed framework can reduce decision-maker's comparison duty and potentially reduce errors in the pairwise comparisons used in other decision-making methodologies.

The food industry is a well-established and complex industry. New entrants attempting to penetrate it via the commercialization of a new technological innovation could face high uncertainty and constraints. The capability to innovate through collaboration and to identify suitable strategies and innovative business models (BMs) can be particularly important for bringing a technological innovation to this market. However, although the potential for these capabilities has been advocated, we still lack a complete understanding of how new ventures could support the technology commercialization process via the development of BMs. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To address this gap, this paper builds a conceptual framework that knits together the different bodies of extant literature (i.e. entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation) to analyze the BM innovation processes associated with the exploitation of emerging technologies; determines the suitability of the framework using data from the exploratory case study of IT IS 3D – a firm which has started to exploit 3D printing in the food industry; and improves the initial conceptual framework with the findings that emerged in the case study.

From this analysis it emerged that: companies could use more than one BM at a time; hence, BM innovation processes could co-exist and be run in parallel; the facing of high uncertainty might lead firms to choose a closed and/or a familiar BM, while explorative strategies could be pursued with open BMs; significant changes in strategies during the technology commercialization process are not necessarily reflected in a radical change in the BM; and firms could deliberately adopt interim strategies and BMs as means to identify the more suitable ones to reach the market.

This case study illustrates how firms could innovate the processes of their BM development to face the uncertainties linked with the entry into a mature and highly conservative industry (food).

This paper aims to report on the findings of an investigation to compare three different three-dimensional printing (3DP) or additive manufacturing technologies [i.e. fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography (SLA) and material jetting (MJ)] and four different equipment (FDM, SLA, MJP 2600 and Object 260) in terms of their dimensional process capability (dimensional accuracy and surface roughness). It provides a comprehensive and comparative understanding about the level of attainable dimensional accuracy, repeatability and surface roughness of commonly used 3DP technologies. It is expected that these findings will help other researchers and industrialists in choosing the right technology and equipment for a given 3DP application.

A benchmark model of 5 × 5 cm with several common and challenging features, such as around protrusion and hole, flat surface, micro-scale ribs and micro-scale long channels was designed and printed repeatedly using four different equipment of three different 3DP technologies. The dimensional accuracy of the printed models was measured using non-contact digital measurement methods. The surface roughness was evaluated using a digital profilometer. Finally, the surface quality and edge sharpness were evaluated under a reflected light ZEISS microscope with a 50× magnification objective.

The results show that FDM technology with the used equipment results in a rough surface and loose dimensional accuracy. The SLA printer produced a smoother surface, but resulted in the distortion of thin features (<1 mm). MJ printers, on the other hand, produced comparable surface roughness and dimensional accuracy. However, ProJet MJP 3600 produced sharper edges when compared to the Objet 260 that produced round edges.

This paper, for the first time, provides a comprehensive comparison of three different commonly used 3DP technologies in terms of their dimensional capability and surface roughness without farther post-processing. Thus, it offers a reliable guideline for design consideration and printer selection based on the target application.

Present for more than 20 years, 3D food printing (3DFP) technology has not experienced the same widespread adoption as its non-food counterparts. It is believed that relevant business models are crucial for its expansion. The purpose of this study is to identify the dominant prototypical business models and patterns in the 3DFP industry. The knowledge gained could be used to provide directions for business model innovation in this industry.

The authors established a business model framework and used it to analyse the identified 3DFP manufacturers. The authors qualitatively identified the market’s prototypical business models and used agglomerative hierarchical clustering to extract further patterns.

All identified 3DFP businesses use the prototypical business model of selling ownership of physical assets, with some variations. Low-cost 3D food printers for private usage and dedicated 3D food printers for small-scale food producers are the two primary patterns identified. Furthermore, several benefits of 3DFP technology are not being used, and the identified manufacturers are barely present in high-revenue markets, which prevents them from driving technological innovation forward.

The extracted patterns can be used by the companies within the 3DFP industry and even in other additive manufacturing segments to reflect upon, refine or renew their business model. Some directions for business model innovation in this industry are provided.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first quantitative study to give an account of the current 3DFP business models and their possible evolution. This study also contributes to the business model patterns methodological development.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between gender, innovation and growth in Italian innovative start-ups.

This is a quantitative study based on a sample of more than 4,600 Italian innovative start-ups. In order to ascertain whether female-led firms that invest more in innovation grow more than their male-led counterparts, sales growth is analysed through a fixed-effects regression over the period 2015–2019. Propensity score matching is also used to check for potential selection bias.

Results reveal that innovation is crucial for start-up growth and, most importantly, that female entrepreneurs exploit the potential of innovative activities for their firm’s growth better than their male peers.

The results provide important evidence on the link between gender and innovation and how these two elements interact for the growth of firms in their early life. Results also provide insights for policymakers to use in designing programs for promoting female entrepreneurship and participation in science.