3YOURMIND announced its membership in the Joint Working Group (JWG) between VDMA and Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA). 3YOURMIND will join 180 leading companies operating in additive manufacturing to help standardize industry practices.
As Germany’s premier mechanical engineering organization, VDMA is laying the groundwork for additive manufacturing standardization. The collaboration between VDMA and OPC UA JWG brings together experts across the entire additive manufacturing value chain, including machine manufacturing, materials, pre-and post-processing, and software specialists.
The goal of the OPC UA is to create a standardized, open framework that will enable interoperability based on mechanical engineering requirements, including open-source access, enhanced security, scalability, semantic machine description, and transport mechanisms and protocols.
“For the user, an open platform means bringing together different machines that can be connected to available production locations along the process chain,” says Ranier Gerhardt, advisor to the additive manufacturing working group at VDMA. “And that’s where 3YOURMIND is involved.”
To help achieve this framework, the OPC UA JWG Companion Specifications initiative will leverage 3YOURMIND’s experience as an additive manufacturing workflow automation solution to populate data requirement profiles to help solidify standard data capture practices industry-wide.
“Automated and scalable AM productions require a uniform communication interface between machines and software,” says Karl Patrick Möller, 3YOURMIND’s lead machine connectivity technician and editor of the JWG. “In the Joint Working Group, we are developing this standard to ensure clear data collection, streamlined communication channels, and control of different machine types.”
About VDMA:
The VDMA represents more than 3,400 German and European companies in the mechanical engineering industry. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation, and medium-sized businesses. The companies employ around four million people in Europe, more than one million in Germany. Mechanical and plant engineering represents a European turnover volume of approximately 800 billion euros. With a net value-added of around 270 billion euros, it contributes the highest share of the entire manufacturing sector to the European gross domestic product.
About 3YOURMIND:
3YOURMIND’s unique end-to-end workflow software enables industry leaders to build on-demand distributed production models. 3YOURMIND offers Enterprise Software to automate additive manufacturing processes and workflows. Its modularized product suite standardizes every aspect of the additive manufacturing (AM) supply chain, from creating digital qualified parts inventories to shop-floor processes automation. The software lays the foundation for agile manufacturing with end-to-end transparency, traceability, and flexibility. 3YOURMIND is a global organization with headquarters in Berlin, Germany, and satellite offices throughout Europe and the United States.
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