Cloud-Based Software for Managing 3D Printing Workflows

Materialise has introduced CO-AM, an open software platform to manage the additive manufacturing (AM) production process more efficiently. CO-AM will give manufacturers cloud-based access to a full range of software tools that allow them to plan, manage and optimize every stage of their AM operations, the company says.

According to the company, the open architecture of the platform lets users integrate all of their preferred tools, allowing customers in major manufacturing industries, including aerospace, automotive, consumer, medical and energy, to have access to the latest software innovations and to scale their operations based on their current needs. At the same time, CO-AM will provide seamless access to production data, allowing manufacturers to continuously monitor and improve their AM workflows.

“This is an important milestone in our history,” says Bart Van der Schueren, CTO of Materialise. “CO-AM offers new opportunities for AM users to innovate at unprecedented levels with their preferred software solutions. This open platform will allow the AM community to co-develop solutions that create competitive advantages for individual companies and empower entire industries. At the same time, this business model generates new revenue streams for hardware and software partners.”

The CO-AM platform leverages a data-lake that connects to all production tools and keeps track of what is happening on the production floor. The ability to monitor and analyze production data will enable operators to define and store their own unique workflows in a knowledge database, empowering them to continuously improve the production process, the company says.

The Materialise CO-AM platform has an open software architecture that provides companies direct access to multiple hardware technologies and their preferred tools from Materialise and other software developers.

Materialise plans to offer more than 25 software applications on its CO-AM platform, including a seamless integration with Magics; AM Watch for shopfloor data collection, and its Build Processors for connectivity with more than 150 different 3D printing systems. The company will also open the platform to independent software vendors and has already onboarded several third party applications, including AM-Flow and Castor.

Materialise invites AM software vendors to connect their applications to the CO-AM software platform for selected pilot projects. Development partners will get access to the software development kit (SDK), application programming interfaces (APIs), and staging environment, enabling them to natively build proprietary or co-developed solutions within the platform.

Materialise is already working with selected customers and plans to provide broader access to the CO-AM platform over the coming months, the company says.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.