Integration of 3D-Printing Processes with a Cloud Manufacturing Platform

Cloud manufacturing represents an approach for manufacturing companies to integrate their resources and establish a collaborative and flexible infrastructure for improving resource utilization and gathering new business opportunities. In this context, additive manufacturing with its core process 3D printing is a well-suited modern production paradigm to be integrated into cloud manufacturing as it offers manufacturing design freedom not only for rapid prototyping but nowadays also for producing the actual product series.This paper introduces an approach that involves the usage of an ontology for representing knowledge of 3D printing processes. This knowledge is used by a cloud manufacturing platform when orders are placed by users to determine material or type of a 3D printing process as well as for allocating the order to a suitable factory possessing the required capability.