Frugal innovations and 3D printing: insights from the field

Josip Maric, Florence Rodhain and Yves Barlette

Journal of Innovation Economics, 2016, vol. n°21, issue 3, 57-76

Abstract: In this paper, we present a growing technological sector ? additive manufacturing ? and discuss its hidden potential as frugal innovation. Additive manufacturing, which is also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, constitutes a recent manufacturing process that builds layers to create a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model. 3D printing technology has been identified as one aspect of the digital revolution that has the potential to revolutionize the industrial world. This topic has been surrounded with a lot of hype when predicting future application scope. In this paper, we focus on 3D printing as a technology that, under certain circumstances of technological transfer via community-operated organizations like fab labs, enables the development of frugal solutions targeting Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) population. At the same time, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on Frugal Innovations in existing scholar literature. JEL Codes: O32, O35

Keywords: management; innovation; frugal; additive; manufacturing; 3D printing; technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O32 O35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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