Additive Manufacturing in the Goldsmith Industry. Technological issues, economic benefits and firms' actual adoption.

For more than a decade now, in the world of technology has been undermined a new and powerful concept for the industrial production, it is the Additive Manufacturing (AM) which is often naively mistaken for 3D printing. In this paper will be analyzed the most common technologies of the AM family, with a specific focus on the goldsmith sector for the production of jewels. In fact, as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, direct printing of precious metal jewelry deserves a continuous analysis of the state of the art to understand if and when a jeweler should prefer a new technology to the classic technique of lost wax casting. This practical and operational study aims to look at the technological evolution, giving an analysis of the merits and defects of AM jewelry printing, trying to define when and why it is convenient to print a jewel with the additive manufacturing technology. This study aims primarily to provide an overview of additive technologies, so that the reader can begin to become familiar with the topic. In the first chapter the technologies are explained and grouped by family according to the starting base, whether solid, liquid or powdery. The second chapter no longer focuses on the general aspect of the AM, instead focuses on the goldsmith sector. In fact, the main changes that the AM has caused in the classic and millenary production cycle of the goldsmith's art are explained. Then are described step by step the various stages of the more traditional technology of classic microfusion and those of the more innovative selective laser melting (SLM). Subsequently, an overview of the materials used in the goldsmith's field has been given and the importance of using the right software has been mentioned. In order to clarify the reason why the world of the goldsmith has decided to approach the AM has been reported a list of pros and cons. The third chapter is divided by macro advantages and disadvantages, each of which is further divided and deepened. The fourth chapter enters into the specifics of research, the three most used technologies in the goldsmith world have been compared, emphasizing those that are the most critical aspects in the industrial reality. Therefore, classic, direct microfusion and selective laser melting have been analyzed both from a technical-structural point of view, such as the problems of fusion or geometric limits, and from an economic-managerial point of view, such as time and production capacity. Moreover, it has been introduced a topic that has been very much felt so far, that of the environmental impact. As a final analysis in the light of the assessments made in chapter four, it was decided to demonstrate how in the Vicenza market - one of the best Italian provinces in the production of jewelry in the jewelry industry - these technologies have been adopted by the local market. Then this final part aims to give a practical answer to a suspended question: when and why does direct printing in precious metal jewels make sense and not?