Manufacturing sector is considered as the backbone of economic development. Its evolution and influence on the global economy is tremendous and have been transformative through innovation and modernisation.

Manufacturing Industry has been shaping nations and propelling socio-economic progress by creating jobs, generating income through secondary and tertiary sectors, reducing poverty and stimulating economic growth.

Despite challenges like globalisation, competition, technological change and environmental concerns, the manufacturing industry continues to grow and diversify into different categories. One such type that is silently catching the imagination of the industry is Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing. It is a transformative technology that has revolutionised the way we design, prototype, and produce objects. It involves building a three-dimensional object from digital files by depositing material layer by layer. This process allows for the creation of complex geometries with intricate details. 

AM enables rapid prototyping to quickly iterate on designs, test concepts, and produce functional prototypes, accelerating customised product development cycles. Unlike traditional manufacturing methods that are often constrained by tooling and mould requirements, AM allows for the production of complex shapes, internal features, and personalised products. This opens up new possibilities for innovation and creativity in various industries. 

AM enables the production of small batches of items cost-effectively. This makes it particularly suitable for specialised or customised products, spare parts, and low-volume production runs with a wide range of materials, including metals, plastics, ceramics, and even biological materials. Its impact can be felt across various industries, including aerospace, automotive, healthcare, consumer products, etc, revolutionising the way we design, produce, and innovate.

Automation in AM enhances productivity, reduces production costs, improves product quality, enables more complex designs and promotes human safety through various aspects. One common aspect that binds itself with process control, monitoring and inspection, material handling or robotics integration is data management. 

Data has become an indispensable asset and crucial element in the modern world. It helps in decision-making, enables higher levels of business intelligence, promotes research and development, fuels artificial intelligence and machine learning, enables personalised experiences for individuals and guides us to interact with the digital landscape. Automation enables the collection and analysis of data from the manufacturing process, allowing for continuous improvement and optimisation of process parameters.

Data management in additive manufacturing, as in any other ecosystem, involves the collection, organisation, and analysis of data throughout the process, from design and preparation to production and post-processing. It plays a crucial role in ensuring efficient and effective AM operations, optimising product quality, and enabling data-driven decision-making, analysis and optimisation.

Effective data management in AM enables manufacturers to optimise process parameters for improved product quality and efficiency, Identify and mitigate potential defects or failures, Trace product history and ensure regulatory compliance, Enable predictive maintenance and reduce downtime and Facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing within the AM ecosystem.

Key hardware components in shaping up this vital aspect of data management are devices that can pull and pick data from the various elements of a shop floor ambience and deliver it to a rugged and robust intelligent system like an industrial computer. 

Pro-face is one of the early pioneers who have the complete solution in form of a versatile graphic touch panels that can double up as a logic controller, field IO modules, industrial PCs and associated software and tools. Without the need for getting into complex and expensive systems that get outdated within months, Pro-face offers long term, simple and innovative solutions to achieve the objectives of implementing a complete data management system by integrating various sub-systems from the manufacturing facility wirelessly, integrate them into PC and provide the ready data on the finger tips through a tab or a mobile device.

For details contact VBR Technologies Private Limited, Tel: 91-87 22222 500, email: info@vbrtech.com