Olivier Diegerick, EMEA Additive Manufacturing Portfolio Development Executive at Siemens Digital Industries Software shares how the digital thread can help to unlock the full potential of industrial-scale 3D printing by enabling greater efficiency, quality, and traceability across the entire process.
The European additive manufacturing (AM) market is experiencing significant growth, with projections that it will reach approximately $28 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.9% from 2024 to 2030. This growth is driven by increasing demand across various industries, including automotive, aerospace, healthcare, and consumer electronics, where AM solutions can fill the need for customised, on-demand ceramics, metal, and plastic components. With the changing global economy, companies are also looking to expand their export markets beyond their regional boundaries.
However, AM companies in Europe can learn and adopt insights from their counterparts in China and the United States in key areas: printing and process innovation, adoption of new technologies, market expansion, sustainable and more efficient manufacturing, as well as collaboration and partnerships.
For example, Chinese companies have rapidly advanced in metal additive manufacturing, driven by strong national strategies and significant investments. European companies can learn from China's focus on developing self-sufficient, cutting-edge technologies, and leveraging government support. European companies can adopt similar approaches to innovation, focusing on diverse applications and continuous improvement of their technologies.
The rapid commercialization of additive manufacturing in China, with many companies achieving IPOs and significant venture capital funding, highlights the importance of strategic market expansion and attracting investment. European companies can benefit from adopting aggressive market strategies and seeking diverse funding sources. U.S. organizations also excel in marketing and commercializing their technologies across various industries, from healthcare to aerospace. European companies can learn from their marketing strategies and industry-specific applications to broaden their market reach.
The emphasis on sustainability in China's additive manufacturing sector, as part of the "Made in China 2025" strategy, highlights the potential for integrating eco-friendly practices and efficient production methods. European companies can target similar sustainability goals to enhance their environmental impact. U.S. companies often focus on reducing material waste and speeding up production processes. European companies can implement these efficiency measures to refine their manufacturing operations and reduce costs.
In the United States and China, collaboration between universities and industry in China has been crucial for advancing additive manufacturing technologies. European companies can receive help from forming strategic alliances and partnerships to enhance their technological capabilities and market presence. By learning from the successes and strategies of additive manufacturing companies in China and the United States, European companies can enhance their competitiveness and drive growth in the global market.
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Germany is expected to have the highest a growth rate in European AM manufacturing. This is why Siemens has been building digital thread technology to support the inevitable expansion into industrial-scale additive manufacturing.
What is the Digital Thread?
Deloitte
The digital thread for industrial additive manufacturing translates to seamless connectivity between printing machines, data analytics software, and factory systems. It enables multiple software solutions to work together to manage the entire production process – from part design and prototyping to build setup, materials optimization, printing, post-processing, and integration into the factory for supply management, on-demand production, and traceability.
Integrating these solutions means the entire 3D printing process in a factory, from beginning to end, can be managed within a single system. This closed loop makes adherence and qualification for standards easier with a continuous thread of data from start to finish, providing traceability all along the way.
A Digital Thread Flows through Design to Post-Production
The flow of data for the digital thread starts at the design concept. Tools in the digital flow enable using the generative design method of automatically developing and comparing multiple design options to find an ideal, best-fit solution. 3D simulation software provides the power to quickly iterate through hundreds or thousands of possible optimized designs.
The design data then can flow into simulation tools for build preparation, orientation and mesoscale deposition, as well as part performance, thermal and stress analysis…before going to print. Once the design and printing process has been optimized and tested virtually, the data then flows seamlessly to the machines in the factory.
Additive manufacturing production at the industrial scale must be well-managed to be efficient. This includes the order-to-shipment process, but also the management of materials and machine scheduling. Once in the factory, the digital thread connects and flows through machines from planar powder beds to filament deposition to multi-material and multi-axis systems. The digital thread enables the 3D printing process to be integrated into a larger manufacturing management system through scheduling, execution, and monitoring. This allows full operational visibility to ensure best quality and efficiency, while tracking material flow to ensure using the proper mix of recycled and virgin material for the various print jobs executed throughout the factory.
The digital thread of data running through seamlessly connected software solutions ensures a quality process that includes the factory’s systems of internet of things (IoT) and analytics. This means that the entire 3D printing process can be monitored, the resulting data analyzed, and then acted upon in real time for part and process improvements. This closed-feedback loop feeds insights back into upstream phases of the additive manufacturing process for next-generation innovation.
The digital thread in essence ensures maximum efficiency of the complete 3D printing process from design to industrial-scale manufacturing, maximizing the ROI from a company’s additive manufacturing investment.
As more companies adopt on-demand 3D printing, the industry is maturing and an ecosystem of companies and technologies working together will enable greater scalability and efficiency improvements, as well as sustainable material processing for the future.
The Digital Thread Flows through Collaborations
LimaCorporate
Printed tibial implant
Siemens already has years of experience using additive manufacturing in its own factories and collaborating with customers to maximize and improve the use of their 3D printing systems. When their client LimaCorporate, an Italian-based global orthopedics developer, decided to pursue cementless total knee arthroplasty, they knew the challenge would be difficult.
There are three components of a knee implant. The femoral component attaches to the lower thigh bone, a tibial plate connects to the upper shin bone and a polyethylene insert goes between the two. The femoral component is solid metal produced via precision machining. LimaCorporate found that the tibial plate would be ideal for using Trabecular Titanium, a proprietary 3D structure that can be repeated in a design and combined with the solid parts of a prosthesis using powder bed fusion.
The company partnered with the Department of Biomechanics of the New York-based Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) to study patients walking with a knee implant to determine the best location and shape for three contact points between the tibial plate and bone.
At the time, they had to 3D print every change to the design, creating an STL file and bringing it into a different software package. Every time there was another change, it was difficult to edit the faceted STL files.
Working with a digital representation of the TT lattice structure further complicated design. Having to manipulate STL files in an isolated tool created a discontinuity with the company’s product lifecycle management (PLM) environment. LimaCorporate’s R&D team was accustomed to an integrated, associative digital thread in their conventional design to manufacturing processes. But as their additive manufacturing design process became increasingly iterative, the team began experiencing issues with version control, build handling, and scheduling optimization for prototype production.
LimaCorporate
Designing the new tibial implant
So LimaCorporate needed a new way to design its tibial plate. That’s when they learned that the digital thread via integrated and connected software solutions also included additive manufacturing tools.
Using the digital thread, they reduced 3D printing modeling and job preparation time by 50%. With design optimization, they were able to zero in on candidate designs with fewer experiments. And, with everything in the same software ecosystem, errors were reduced and product reliability increased. Innovations in data management with the digital thread continues to support Lima with their aim of giving people a better quality of life.
AI plays an increasingly important role in AM—whether in optimizing designs, improving process monitoring, or enhancing decision-making through predictive analytics. AI and the digital thread together can unlock even greater potential in AM.
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