How Additive Manufacturing Will Transform Digital Manufacturing

Since the 19th century, manufacturing has rapidly evolved the creation of goods and given us highly complex supply and value chains. Article by Terrence Oh, Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific), EOS.

Now, Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing are on the tip of everyone’s tongue, representing a whole new industrial revolution in the thick of the digital age. Even though most are talking about it, there are very diverse thoughts about the whole picture of Industry 4.0 and a few examples have already shown success. One common aspect all approaches have in common is their focus on data, its evaluation, interpretation and usage to improve metrics like overall equipment efficiency (OEE).

The next wave of transformation in manufacturing will be due to and combination of intelligent components and digitalised production. These combine to achieve intelligent, digitally produced components for smart applications. The outcomes will be unique market winning smart applications, that are produced in efficient and effective smart factories.

Moving from Industry 3.0 to 4.0 requires huge efforts in digitising complex supply chains. It usually focuses on implementing all technologies and supply chain steps into one digital thread ideally. In order to increase the flexibility of such digital supply chains, additive manufacturing (AM) can significantly reduce the complexity. This leads not only to the opportunity of a digital thread, but also to the reduction of production time, assembly steps and scrap.

Powder bed-based AM technologies allow production flexibility to be increased due to their nature – a generative production process with almost no geometric limitations. This production flexibility is the basis for a future, fully digital production, enabling global manufacturing of intelligent parts, with a digital thread throughout the full lifecycle. Data will be generated from each batch of base material onward to the data collection during the final performance of a produced part.

The ‘3igital’ concept will enable additive production of intelligent components, with digital production chains, for smart and integrated applications.

3igital: Intelligent Components

Even today, additively-produced components are meeting requirements from a wide variety of industries to generate substantial added value. A next step will be to expand the advantages of additively produced components. For example, by integrating sensors to create intelligent components. The goal is to completely integrate data generation and sensor systems, which turn additively produced components into smart applications that are highly tailored to customer-specific requirements.

3igital: Digital Production

Once the intelligent component has been defined, a next step will be the integration of additive production into the digital factories of the future. The goal: Highly flexible and adaptable digital production that combines industrial 3D printing with conventional production technologies in existing and still-to-be-constructed production environments.

3igital: Intelligent, Digitally Produced Components for Smart Applications

The component data is now available from design to production, to the ‘intelligent’ part and can be collected throughout the life cycle of the component. In the end, we have a chain of innovation comprising of intelligent components produced in a digitalised 3D printing production chain. In the last area when the parts are used, they will provide valuable information that can be used to improve the use of the parts, the production chain and the component design. This opens up completely new perspectives for end-to-end linking of the design, production, and utilisation of the component, thus also permitting continuous optimisation. This can result in efficiency gains beyond the boundaries of the company, resulting in changes in entire value chains.

In other words, the future of manufacturing is not only linked digitally and additively, but, above all, it is integrated – becoming a true disruptor in digital manufacturing. By channelling our efforts into growing this technology and through integration, AM is already tapping the next technological dimension for the future: intelligent components – additively produced by a digitalised production cell – for smart applications.

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