Materialise refines CO-AM: new workflow solutions for industrial 3D printing production

Materialise is expanding its CO-AM platform with three new configurations designed to move additive manufacturing from isolated setups toward connected production environments. CO-AM Professional, CO-AM NPI and CO-AM Enterprise target different levels of AM implementation maturity, from small-scale series production to globally coordinated manufacturing networks. At the core is the orchestration of data, machines and quality assurance across the entire 3D printing workflow.

Accordingly, the company positions CO-AM as a configurable control layer that integrates existing systems instead of replacing them. CO-AM Professional targets operations with high product variety and low volumes, consolidating order data, build and platform preparation in the cloud and integrating Magics as the central hub. Traceability and reusable process recipes are intended to enable machine-independent, reproducible workflows.

CO-AM NPI focuses on the qualification of parts and series processes. With CO-AM Brix, Materialise introduces a low-code environment in which users can model and automate toolpath-related strategies, support structures and process parameters as graphical workflows. Validated recipes and QA parameters are versioned and serve as the basis for certification and audit processes. CO-AM Enterprise extends these capabilities with order management, production control and cross-site data collection, including telemetry and quality data from manufacturing.

“The industrialization of additive manufacturing is neither a software problem nor a hardware problem – it is a manufacturing problem,” said Udo Eberlein, Vice President Software at Materialise. “It requires a deep understanding of the entire workflow, the real-world constraints and the practical trade-offs that production teams face every day. We are tailoring our offerings to the specific needs of the market – from standard to high-end users – and are bringing NPI and Enterprise solutions to market that help companies use AM in a scalable and reliable way.”

Technically, the platform is based on an open build processor approach and a shared domain model that describes key AM entities such as part, material batch, machine or parameter set, and is harmonized with standards like ISO/ASTM 529xx and 3MF. This is intended to ensure that OEM build processors, customer-specific strategies and third-party tools remain consistently integrable.

“The AM industry needs an ecosystem that connects tools and automates workflows. No single solution will solve this challenge,” said Eberlein. “Platforms without deep domain expertise risk becoming mere abstraction layers – convenient until they’re not; flexible until you need something they didn’t anticipate. Materialise brings decades of software development experience built on close collaboration with our partners and deep knowledge from real-world manufacturing. CO-AM is our way of making this expertise available to the entire industry.”

For users looking to develop additive manufacturing from pilot cells to scalable series production, CO-AM primarily offers one thing: a shared data foundation on which automated, auditable 3D printing processes can be set up and further developed across machine fleets and locations.