According to Materialise, AM production requires skilled manual intervention, and disconnected data can make it hard to achieve the consistent and repeatable quality standards required to mass-produce identical or customized products. Providing access to software in an open, cloud-based platform could help mitigate these problems.
CO-AM’s open architecture reportedly lets users integrate all preferred tools, and provide access to production data, allowing manufacturers to continuously monitor and improve their AM workflows. It features a data-lake that connects to all production tools and keeps track of what is happening on the production floor. Materialise plans to offer more than 25 software applications on its CO-AM platform, including its Magics program and build processors for connectivity with more than 150 different 3D printing systems. The company will also open the platform to independent software vendors such as AM-Flow and Castor.
"The next step for change in the AM Industry is automation," said Stefan Rink, CEO of AM-Flow. "There are many digital dots to connect to create a full automation value chain. Teaming up with other solution providers of this chain is a prerequisite for the growth and scalability of additive manufacturing production."
