Streamlining the Additive Manufacturing Digital Spectrum: A Systems Approach

Published

October 18, 2014

Author(s)

Duck B. Kim, Paul Witherell, Robert R. Lipman, Shaw C. Feng

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) provides great potential for industrial manufacturers who require low volume and functional, highly complex end use products. Given AM's potential, numerous research efforts are underway to reduce the time and improve the quality of the product realization process for additive manufacturing. A major area of opportunity is to complement existing efforts with advancements in end-to-end digital implementations of AM processes. New paradigms are needed to support more efficient and consistent design-to-product transformations. Systematically configured digital implementations would facilitate informational transformations through standard interfaces, streamlining the AM digital spectrum. Here, we propose the development of a federated, information systems architecture for additive manufacturing. The architecture will specify product requirements, the stages of the product realization process, and the interfaces needed to link those stages together. Common data structures and interfaces will allow developers and end users of additive manufacturing technologies to simplify, coordinate, validate, and verify digital end-to-end implementations.

Citation

Additive Manufacturing

Volume

5

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

additive manufacturing, systems engineering, digital thread, information systems architecture

Citation

Kim, D. , Witherell, P. , Lipman, R. and Feng, S. (2014), Streamlining the Additive Manufacturing Digital Spectrum: A Systems Approach, Additive Manufacturing, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=915971 (Accessed May 21, 2025)