In regulated sectors such as the aerospace, pharmaceutical and automotive industries, it is important to establish and maintain the highest quality standards. As the basis for a stable production environment, the Six Sigma DMAIC cycle ensures that potential risks are identified and countermeasures can be taken. Very often, such measures include manual checklists or workflows that must be trained and strictly followed. In many cases, these lists are kept in paper form and then have to be digitized and saved afterwards. A certain risk of error or manipulation can therefore not be ruled out.

With the help of digitalization, companies can streamline processes - from ordering and costing to scheduling production cycles. However, human processes still need to be standardized to ensure consistently high quality in production. This is particularly the case in the preparation of additive manufacturing systems for printing orders. EOS, PTC and Link3D are therefore working on an appropriate solution. The preparation of the production systems and downstream production processes are coordinated with predefined customer-specific workflows and the entire process is recorded.

"The scalable and agile industrial use of EOS additive manufacturing systems requires the knowledge and skills of employees to reliably perform the critical steps in pre- and post-processing," said Christoph Bräuchle, VP, Production Innovation Management at PTC. "Process-specific instructions for employees based on our Vuforia AR technology help with training and guidance and complement Link3D Additive MES. In addition, connecting Link3D and our IIoT platform ThingWorx will help our joint customers further expand the utilization of their additive manufacturing assets."

The collaboration between EOS, PTC and Link3D offers companies in the field of additive manufacturing various advantages, according to the company:

1. Improved production quality with reproducible fixed processes
2. Standardize processes with AR-guided work instructions for the preparation and maintenance of EOS machines
3. Enabling a continuous digital thread
4. Compliance with regulatory customer requirements thanks to process validation
5. Creation of part certificates of conformity, additional quality documentation and data analysis reports

"We will be presenting our augmented reality solution at our stand at Formnext. Visitors will get an impression of the possibilities for EOS customers to scale their quality production - with PTC Vuforia and Link3D Additive MES," said Michael Jan Galba, Head of Global Consulting & Manufacturing Engineering at EOS. He adds: "In addition to our reliable and high quality 3D printing processes and systems, this collaboration provides an effective solution to easily and properly document relevant work steps and verifications through guided work processes. Companies can maintain their certifications while training the next generation of EOS system operators."

Process instructions with PTC's AR technology enables digital work instructions in a 3D overlay with physical EOS machines via mobile devices such as iPads or head-worn AR devices. These process instructions can be initiated via Link3D MES Job Traveler and PTC Vuforia. Companies can use this solution to train a large number of employees in standardized work processes for the production preparation of EOS machines. At the same time, the highest quality standards are guaranteed.

In a production scenario in which employees carry out each step with the help of AR process instructions, the work steps are automatically validated and the data output is recorded digitally in Link3D in real time. Documentation, quality reports such as certificates of conformity and quality analyses are generated automatically. By standardizing production processes, companies can improve the quality of parts on a large scale while completely eliminating the need for paper documents. This eliminates the risk of incorrect completion or loss of documents.

"Through our collaboration, we can support users in program implementation and improve the production quality of industrial 3D printers from EOS with PTC Vuforia and Link3D Additive MES on a large scale," emphasizes Vishal Singh, CTO of Link3D. "In the future, employee training will be conducted on a large scale via AR / VR. MES will play a critical role in validating training compliance and production, ensuring compliance with specific customer requirements for printed parts."

Formnext:
EOS: Hall 11.1, Stand D31
Link3D: Hall 12