A framework for manufacturing execution system deployment in an advanced additive manufacturing process

The deployment of additive manufacturing (AM) processes had a rapid and broad increase in the last years, and the same trend is expected to hold in the near future. A way to better exploit the advantages of such technology is the use of appropriate information tools. However, today there is a lack of software applications devoted to this innovative manufacturing process. To overcome this issue, in the present work the application of manufacturing execution systems (MES), a tool commonly used in traditional manufacturing processes, is extended to AM. Furthermore, a framework for the deployment of shop-floor data, acquired through a monitoring system, in the design phase is presented: hence, MES should cooperate with design for additive manufacturing (DFAM), a set of methods and tools helpful to design a product and its manufacturing process taking into account AM specificities from the early design stages. In order to better understand the advantages of such cooperation, a case study for a proof of concept has been developed: the obtained results are promising, thus an online implementation would be recommended

A Proposal of Manufacturing Execution System Integration in Design for Additive Manufacturing

Part 14: Design and Integration IssuesInternational audienceThe deployment of Additive Manufacturing processes had a rapid and broad increase in the last years, and the same trend is expected to hold in the near future. A way to better exploit the advantages of such technology is the use of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DFAM), a set of methods and tools helpful to design a product and its manufacturing process taking into account AM specificities from the early design stages. However, until now DFAM has not received feedback information from the shop-floor additive machines. To overcome this information lack, we present in this paper an integration between DFAM and a Manufacturing Execution System (MES), an information framework able to real-time acquire, analyze and synthesize process and product data. The MES-DFAM cooperation allows to improve product quality and process performance, and to better deal with possible criticalities, both in the prototyping and in the mass production phases