Digital Manufacturing

Abstract

The digital revolution has brought about a paradigm shift in communication or business. In manufacturing for instance, efficiency has risen while the cost has significantly reduced. Moreover, the manufacturing sector at large has completely been transformed by embracing cutting-edge technologies, ushering in thereby the ‘digital manufacturing’ age. Digital manufacturing systems today are themselves the result of a confluence between technologies that have followed diverse pathways of progress. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, popularly known as Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has been blurring the boundaries between man and machine. Digital Twins, Additive Manufacturing, and the Internet of Things are necessary technologies for realizing the goals of I4.0. This chapter deals with the following technologies: Digital Twins, Additive Manufacturing, and Internet of Things. At first, we describe the need for digitalization in manufacturing systems and then, explain the functionality of several technologies of I4.0. We also explore some of the gaps that exist between research and implementation through a collective open-sourced IoT and digital twin architecture.