The working group develops OPC UA Information Models for the industrial process chain of additive manufacturing (“AM”) so that AM systems and other systems directly involved in the additive manufacturing process can be easily connected, configured and integrated into industrial manufacturing processes.
The models support production planning (overview of current and planned orders), process data acquisition and process control over the entire process chain by reading data from or sending data to the machine. The analysis of the recorded production data can be used to increase productivity, create an energy and resource balance, and optimize maintenance cycles.
The material cycle is supported in the area of supply (powders, granulates, resins…), processing and handling of components and production residues. Sustainable production operation in networked production is promoted through optimized material use and recycling.
The UA companion specification defines OPC UA constructs for the purpose of exposing machine and job information to OPC UA applications and to exchange process information between AM systems with various technologies and from different manufacturers, model series and stages of development.
This includes the various industrially available AM processes (s. DIN EN ISO/ASTM 52900), e.g.
– Binder Jetting [BJT]
– Direct Energy Deposition [DED, Wire, Powder, Laser, EB, Arc…]
– Material Extrusion [MEX, FFF, FDM…]
– Material Jetting [MJT, PJ, MJM…]
– Powder Bed Fusion (Laser, E-Beam) [PBF, LBM, SLS, EBM…]
– Vat Photopolymerization [VPP, STL, DLP…]
– …and others
Also included in the consideration are the equipment and technologies relevant for the AM process chain in the pre- and post-process (s. DIN EN ISO/ASTM 52900), e.g.
– surface treatment (thermal, mechanical, chemical…)
– material handling (conditioning, transport, …)
– Separating (sawing, …)
– …and others
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