Digital Machines, Space And Time: A Sociomateriality Exploration In Motorsport Manufacturing

Recently, the diffusion of digital additive technologies (also called 3D printers) has enhanced manufacturing flexibility but also opened questions on how such technologies could affect practices in the production processes. To respond to these timely questions, we adopt a sociomateriality perspective in Operations Management and comparatively explore how different digital manufacturing machines–characterized by increasing degrees of operational flexibility–affect the use of space and time. We qualitatively analyze and compare 36 digital manufacturing machines sampled across 4 types and 12 companies in the iconic motorsport industry–a field that has long embraced additive manufacturing and several other types of flexible machines. We advance a set of propositions highlighting how the enhanced flexibility of new digital machines–in comparison to more traditional ones–differently affect organizational spatial and temporal practices that are relevant and timely for both theory and practice.