AM Supply Chain Management 252

• Managing the AM Supply Chain 252
• Course provides high-quality e-learning focused on current manufacturing training needs.
• Uses text, photos, video, audio, and illustrations to deliver content.
• Offers solutions for metal cutting, workholding, materials, and CNC.
• Addresses the challenge of maintaining a trained workforce by offering low-cost, all-access courses.

Class Outline

• Supply Chain Management and AM
• Digital Thread and Digital Twin
• Serialization
• Serialization and Additive Manufacturing
• Review: Supply Chain Management and Additive Manufacturing
• Blockchain
• Blockchain and Additive Manufacturing
• Review: Serialization and Blockchain

Supply Chain Management and AM

• Supply chains involve exchanges between companies, from raw materials to final product distribution.
• Supply chain management coordinates and optimizes these activities.
• Additive manufacturing transforms traditional supply chains, using digital 3D models to build objects in layers.
• AM uses powders or pellets as raw materials, which can be reclaimed and reused.
• AM may reduce material costs, minimize storage, and combine production and assembly.
• AM can improve responsiveness to customer needs, increasing agility.
• Supply chain managers must consider AM's impact and the total cost of ownership (TCO) when evaluating new programs.
• TCO, the purchase price of an asset plus the costs of operation, aids in determining if AM programs are efficient investments.

Digital Thread and Digital Twin

• A digital thread maintains data on a product from design to use, providing a comprehensive lifecycle view. Addresses protocols, security, and standards.
• A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object.
• Supply chains use digital twins as virtual models of processes.
• Digital threads working with digital twins enable quick adjustments to disruptions.
• Algorithms, instead of human input, manage data and deploy responses in the digital supply chain (DSC).
• This increases efficiency and reduces human input.

Serialization

• Serialization assigns unique, sequential identifiers to inventory, often as serial numbers or RFID chips.
• Allows traceability throughout the supply chain, tracking items back to their origin.
• Manufacturers can read serialized codes manually or by machine to identify contributors, storage, or transportation.
• It can include data on specific parts used in a product's build.
• Serialization helps prevent counterfeiting and piracy.
• Assists in quick consumer recalls for quality or safety issues.

Serialization and Additive Manufacturing

• Each AM machine optimizes processing based on part materials, geometry, and build method.
• AM processes can be altered to create a unique, nearly impossible to replicate mark within the part material.
• This mark is viewable through nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques like X-rays.
• A digital copy of the scan is kept for future authenticity comparisons.
• Serialization can code and identify both manufactured parts and AM machines, creating a traceable link.
• Allows supply chain entities to track a build's initial designer, acting as a traceable link between a part and its conditions of creation.

Review: Supply Chain Management and Additive Manufacturing

• Additive manufacturing: Joining or solidifying materials to create an object based on a 3-D computer model.
• Digital thread: Integrated view of data and information about a part throughout its lifecycle.
• Total cost of ownership: Purchase price plus operational costs.
• Serialization: Tagging units with unique, sequentially assigned identifiers.

Blockchain

• Like serialization, blockchain increases traceability and security against counterfeits
• Blockchain is entirely digital, it ties identifiers together in a digital chain.
• Blockchain, a decentralized, distributed ledger, stores records on a network to prevent theft or destruction.
• Blockchain records provenance (place of origin) of a digital asset.
• A block in a blockchain acts as a digital serial number, linked in a chain.
• Each block includes:
  • Data about the asset's provenance.
  • A nonce: A random number generated when creating a block.
  • A block header hash: A larger number attached to the nonce.
• No single entity can control a blockchain, as information is distributed across a network of nodes.
• Every action is reviewable, transparent with each contributor having an exclusive alphanumeric ID for their transactions.
• All alterations are traceable, building user confidence.

Blockchain and Additive Manufacturing

• In the AM supply chain, part designers may digitally sendsign files to other organizations
• Blockchain prevents design file compromise from cybersecurity breaches, authenticating, transporting, and recording the distribution of the file.
• It enables all blockchain members to recognize the design's origin.
• Engineers use blockchain to set production rules in design files, specifying build parameters, machine models and build materials permitted.
• Manufacturers can only access files meeting these specifications.
• Production rules control the number of parts licensed for printing.
• The blockchain's distributed ledger records all actions throughout a design's lifecycle.
• Allows designers and manufacturers to authenticate a part's origin, addressing problems in finished parts.

Review: Serialization and Blockchain True/False

• A block from a blockchain contains data, a nonce, and a hash. TRUE
• Blockchains are maintained on one centralized computer system. FALSE
• Blockchain technology allows for increased transparency. TRUE
• Blockchain technology is less secure than serialization. FALSE
• Engineers can use serialization to apply rules about what machines can execute design files. FALSE
• Blockchain allows errors in end products to be traced to their source. TRUE

Class Vocabulary

• Additive Manufacturing (AM): Joining materials based on a 3D model, typically building up layers.
• Agility: Responding quickly to customer needs and market changes, enabled by AM.
• Algorithms: Mathematical processes for problem-solving, aiding machine learning.
• Block Header Hash: A 256-bit number attached to the nonce in a blockchain block.
• Blockchain: A decentralized, distributed ledger of linked digital records (blocks) that records the origin of a digital asset.
• Blocks: Identifying units in a blockchain, with data and unique numbers.
• Counterfeiting: Fraudulently imitating something valuable to deceive or defraud.
• Cybersecurity: Protection from unauthorized access to computer networks.
• Decentralized: Allocation of resources to individual workstations, components of a larger network.
• Digital Supply Chain (DSC): A web-based network of computers, companies exchanging resources to deliver products.
• Digital Thread: An integrated view of all data and information about a part’s lifecycle.
• Digital Twin: A virtual representation of a physical object, evolving with it.
• Distributed Ledger: A consensus of replicated, shared digital data across multiple sites without a central administrator.
• Lifecycle: Includes part design, machine setup, production, quality, and end of life.
• Nodes: Electronic devices maintaining blockchain copies and network function, decentralized and distributed.
• Nonce: A 32-bit number randomly generated when a block is created, which then generates the Block Header Hash.
• Nondestructive Testing (NDT): Evaluating properties without damage, like visual, liquid penetrant, magnetic particle, eddy current, ultrasonic, and radiographic testing.
• Piracy: Unauthorized reproduction of another's work.
• Provenance: Place of origin to do with a digital asset is recorded in blockchain.
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID): Identifies and tracks tags attached to objects using electromagnetic fields.
• Regulations: Rules maintained by an authority.
• Regulatory Compliance: Following laws and regulations at various levels.
• Serial Numbers: Unique identifiers assigned sequentially to items, which can be non-numerical.
• Serialization: Tagging inventory with unique, sequential identifiers like serial numbers or RFID chips.
• Supply Chain: A network of companies exchanging resources to deliver products.
• Supply Chain Management: Planning activities to maximize customer value and sustain competitive advantage. Oversees all supply chain organizations.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Purchase price plus operational costs, assessing the value of an investment.
• Traceability: Verifying history and location using data flows, enabled by digital threads.
• Virtual: Existing within a computer program rather than physically. Digital twins are examples.
• X-Rays: Electromagnetic waves to view the interior of solid objects.