Industrialization of Metal Powder Bed Fusion through Machine Shop Networking

Even though journalists write about the 4th industrial revolution, the metal additive manufacturing (AM) machines are still “that awkward machine in the corner”. However, the research community and the European Commission have seen that hybrid solutions are necessary to improve the competitive factor of additive machines, making them an integrated supplementary part of the production plant, as other manufacturing processes are today. Hence, a discussion is raised on changing the way additive machines are operated. The paper discusses new planning systems and support systems for reliable operation of AM processes.