Digital Transaction Engine for Additive Manufacturing Platform Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Customers face difficulties in selecting appropriate additive manufacturing platforms for industrial asset items due to varying capabilities and uncertainties about item creation quality, leading to inefficiencies and risks of poorly designed or counterfeit parts.
Innovation Solution
A system that includes a digital transaction engine to receive and process requests from customers, associate them with suitable additive manufacturing platforms based on capability data, and record transactions via a secure distributed ledger, ensuring efficient and accurate creation of industrial asset items.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If customers select additive manufacturing platforms manually, then they can obtain industrial asset items, but the selection process becomes difficult and error-prone due to varying platform capabilities
Solution Approach 1:
A digital transaction engine is introduced as an intermediary between customers and additive manufacturing platforms. The engine receives capability data from platforms, processes customer requests, and automatically assigns requests to appropriate platforms based on matching capabilities, eliminating manual selection difficulties while ensuring accurate matching.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where additive manufacturing platforms provide capability data back to the digital transaction engine, which then uses this information to make informed assignment decisions. This feedback loop ensures that platform capabilities are continuously updated and accurately reflected in request assignments.
2Productivity
If multiple additive manufacturing platforms are used, then more items can be created with varying capabilities, but it becomes difficult to ensure quality and avoid counterfeit items
Solution Approach 1:
The digital transaction engine acts as a quality gatekeeper intermediary that verifies platform capabilities before assignment and records all transactions in a distributed ledger. This ensures that only qualified platforms receive requests and that all manufacturing activities are traceable, preventing counterfeit items while maintaining high productivity through multiple platforms.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary verification of platform capabilities before assigning manufacturing requests. Capability data is collected and validated in advance, and the distributed ledger records platform qualifications beforehand, ensuring that quality standards are met before production begins rather than after.
3Measurement precision
If additive manufacturing capability data is collected and processed, then accurate platform assignment is achieved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The digital transaction engine is designed as a universal platform that handles multiple functions: receiving capability data from various platforms, processing different types of customer requests, performing capability matching, and recording transactions. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate specialized systems while maintaining high matching accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses digital copies of capability data and transaction records stored in a distributed ledger. Instead of complex physical verification processes, the system replicates and distributes digital representations of platform capabilities and transaction histories, simplifying the verification and matching processes while maintaining accuracy.
4Reliability
If a secure distributed ledger is used to record transactions, then transparency and security are improved, but data management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The capability data management and transaction recording functions are merged into a single distributed ledger system. This consolidation ensures that both capability information and transaction records are stored with the same security and transparency properties, reducing the need for separate management systems while enhancing overall reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
According to some embodiments, a system may include an additive manufacturing platform that provides additive manufacturing capability data. A customer platform, associated with a customer, may transmit an industrial asset item request for an industrial asset item. A digital transaction engine may receive the additive manufacturing capability data and the industrial asset item request. The digital transaction engine may then associate the industrial asset item request with an industrial asset definition file, and, based on the additive manufacturing capability data and the industrial asset definition file, assign the industrial asset item request to the additive manufacturing platform. The assignment of the industrial asset item request may be recorded via a secure, distributed transaction ledger. Responsive to the assignment, the additive manufacturing platform may create the industrial asset item (e.g., via an additive manufacturing printer) and provide the item to the customer.