A Classification of Boundary Resources for Additive Manufacturing Platforms

The digitalization of manufacturing is progressing steadily. This transition means that value creation in manufacturing is increasingly being orchestrated through digital platforms. The success of digital platforms depends heavily on the deployment of boundary resources by the platform provider. They allow the platform provider to maintain control over the platform users’ output while enabling them to use the platform beneficially. To date, boundary resources and their multiple effects have been studied mainly in the context of the platform-based development of complementary software applications. We explore additive manufacturing (AM), a highly digital and maturing production paradigm, to investigate which boundary resources are deployed by AM platform providers. Our preliminary results include a classification and descriptive analysis of 18 identified manifestations of boundary resources, indicating how the concept of boundary resources can be utilized by AM platforms.