Materialise, a global leader in 3D printing software and services, has announced the addition of seven new technology partners to the CO-AM platform. These solutions help with 3D-printed part design and pre-printing automation, traceability, printing, and post-processing.
Materialise Magics has been integrated into CO-AM, bringing with it a new workflow automation feature.
Addressing the need for an open ecosystem
More than ten companies have joined as technology partners since the CO-AM platform’s launch in May 2022. Among the new partners are:
- Trinckle adds design automation for jigs and fixtures
- Twikit offers a mass customization solution, including design automation and automated order creation
- Additive Marking enables digital traceability through automated labeling and authentication technology
- Printer Connectivity with SLM Solutions’ 3D printers to monitor and document machine data
- Solutions from AMT, DyeMansion, and PostProcess to automate and track post-processing steps
The Materialise CO-AM platform provides the AM industry and manufacturing companies with a space for innovation and co-development. It presents an open software architecture that gives manufacturers direct access to multiple hardware technologies as well as their preferred tools from Materialise and other software developers. This will enable the CO-AM community to collaborate on end-to-end manufacturing solutions that will give individual companies a competitive advantage while also empowering entire industries.
“With these new partnerships, the CO-AM community continues to grow, creating the first end-to-end software platform that offers an open ecosystem for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry. Collaboration is key to realize the potential of additive manufacturing and to give our customers seamless access to a full range of software tools to plan, manage, and optimize every step of their 3D printing process.”
– Bart van der Schueren, CTO of Materialise
Customers in major manufacturing industries such as aerospace, automotive, consumer, medical, and energy will have access to the platform’s latest AM innovations and will be able to seamlessly integrate and connect them.
Connecting and automating all parts of the AM factory
Manufacturing firms use additive manufacturing to mass produce identical or customised products. They are, however, looking for ways to achieve repeatable quality standards while reducing the amount of manual intervention.
Materialise delivers on its promise to connect and automate all steps of the AM process with the addition of seven new partners. Design, labelling, machine monitoring, and post-processing are all automated with the new solutions. The CO-AM platform allows users to create a process that is unique to their company. They can select their preferred solution from a growing number of tools to support each step in the AM workflow.
“End-to-end connectivity in CO-AM offers significant advantages for our partners and our customers. For our partners, connecting their applications to the CO-AM platform provides them with opportunities to reach new customers more efficiently. Our customers benefit from a unified user experience throughout Materialise and partner solutions.”
– Vishal Singh, Senior Director of CO-AM
CO-AM Platform Integration and workflow automation with Magics 26
Magics 26, Materialise’s flagship data and build preparation software, has also been integrated into CO-AM. The integration improves traceability by allowing users to monitor and improve AM processes from data preparation to design iterations to the final printed part.
Furthermore, Magics’ new workflow automation feature provides off-the-shelf scripts to automate common build preparation workflows as well as the ability for customers to use customizable scripts to automate build preparation tasks specific to their AM operations.
“The deep integration and workflow automation feature of Magics in CO-AM creates a digital thread between data and build preparation and the overall AM workflow. This is an important step to enable data management across all technologies within CO-AM. It will allow users to reduce production costs and scale AM operations more efficiently.”
– Egwin Bovyn, Product Line Manager of Magics 3D Print Suite at Materialise
Demonstrations of the CO-AM platform and Magics 26 will be available at the Materialise booth (Hall 12.1, C139) during the Formnext 2022 Exhibition, which will be held in Frankfurt from November 15 to 18, 2022.