Autor: Claus Emmelmann

Current advances result in increasingly complex production programs. Through combination of additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0, new elements can be formed and - as a whole - enable to economically manufacture the above mentioned programs. The Bionic Smart Factory 4.0 provides a framework, structuring them in terms of relation and interaction. Their development and implementation is being promoted through their evaluation against the determinants of complex production programs.

The possibilities and limitations of conventional manufacturing processes strongly determine the design process and often lead to devices and products that do not fully exploit their theoretical potentials, e.g. their resistance to flow. Laser Additive Manufacturing is a manufacturing process to produce parts out of metallic powder materials. The technology is on the threshold to industrial maturity and has the potential to enable novel approaches for production and engineering. Thus, a shift from production-oriented design towards a design-oriented selection of the manufacturing process is possible.