In the past years, additive manufacturing (AM), also known as “3D printing,” has transitioned from rapid prototyping to making parts with potentially long service lives. Now AM provides the ability to have an almost fully digital chain from part design through manufacture and service. Web searches will reveal many statements that AM can help an organization in its pursuit of a “digital thread.” Equally, it is often stated that a digital thread may bring great benefits in improving designs, processes, materials, operations, and the ability to predict failure in a way that maximizes safety and minimizes cost and downtime. Now that the capability is emerging, a whole series of new questions begin to surface as well: •• What data should be stored, how will it be stored, and how much space will it require? •• What is the cost-to-benefit ratio of having a digital thread? •• Who owns the data and who can access and analyze it? •• How long will the data be stored and who will store it? •• How will the data remain readable and usable over the lifetime of a product? •• How much manipulation of disparate data is necessary for analysis without losing information? •• How will the data be secured, and its provenance validated? •• How does an enterprise accomplish configuration management of, and linkages between, data that may be distributed across multiple organizations? •• How do we determine what is “authoritative” in such an environment? These, along with many other questions, mark the combination of AM with a digital thread as an unsettled issue. As the seventh title in a series of SAE EDGE™ Research Reports on AM, this report discusses what the interplay between AM and a digital thread in the mobility industry would look like. This outlook includes the potential benefits and costs, the hurdles that need to be overcome for the combination to be useful, and how an organization can answer these questions to scope and benefit from the combination. This report, like the others in the series, is directed at a product team that is implementing AM. Unlike most of the other reports, putting the infrastructure in place, addressing the issues, and taking full advantage of the benefits will often fall outside of the purview of the product team and at the higher organizational, customer, and industry levels.
Applications of 3D Planning, Plastic Materials and Additive Manufacturing in Functional Rehabilitations in the Head and Neck Surgery