Faster Adoption of Additive Manufacturing by Digitalization of Quality Assurance and Material Stock

Purpose and goal

Under the project time, the interest in digitalization of the AM production through the help of sensors and big data architecture was proven and can increase the reliability of AM process and then its adoption by end-user companies. The possibility to have digital blueprints instead of physical stock was also demonstrated and can be interesting for on-demand production and the spare part industry.

Expected results and effects

The project proved the interest of digitalization for industrial AM. Quality control and in-process techniques developed by SME improve the reliability of AM processes but also fulfill end-users needs in quality assurance. It ended up in further private collaboration between SME and end-users (for example Cascade and SKF are currently working together outside the project) but also raised the interest for certain techniques for AM, ending in new collaborations (for example Unibap and Rise IVF through the project DILAM,2017-02252, also on digitalization).

Planned approach and implementation

The project was based on a multidisciplinary collaboration of industrial and academic partners. GKN is already deeply involved in AM but the other end-user, SKF, is new in the area. The project was then useful to demonstrate the possibilities of AM (Rise IVF and University West) through printing of demonstrators (digital stock) and in and post-process monitoring developed by the SME (Cascade Control, Unibap, Termisk SystemTeknik, AGA AB) which use can be also extend to others production methods.