A Perspective on Advances in Cloud-based Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

With advances in technology coupled with Industry 4.0, it has become a reality to provide real time information along with monitoring 3D printing process remotely. The unique benefits associated with additive manufacturing (AM) is its potential to produce complex-shaped personalized products with reduced material waste, fewer cost of manufacture, lesser consumption of energy during manufacturing, while allowing in producing the products on-demand. This paper covers the features of cloud-based Additive Manufacturing (AM) by describing about Sustainable Distributed Manufacturing, Automated Order-Processing, Smart resource efficiency improvement, Big data-driven, smart and sustainable manufacturing, resource sharing between different stakeholders, rapid product development with cloud-based AM Platform (CAMP) and cloud-based manufacturing process monitoring. The paper aims to study the recent advances that took place in cloud-based AM and enlist its salient features to help researchers and manufacturing industry adopt the same and get the basic information. Big data-driven, smart and sustainable manufacturing is the present need of manufacturing at its full potential with secure, real-time communication and intelligent process monitoring and diagnostics.