Business View Magazine | April 2020

14 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 displacing traditional manufacturing has been quality-control issues. Manufacturers can’t be certain each newly formed metal part meets precise specifications in every layer of a 3D part and have been forced to rely on costly and time-consuming postproduction inspection techniques. The inability to know the quality of finished products until postproduction and the uncertainty of parts being produced with consistency has severely limited the widespread adoption of additive manufacturing. Due to these limitations, 3D metal printing has been mostly relegated to prototyping — until now. Sigma Labs Inc. removes any uncertainty by providing quality assurance during the printing process rather than after, or post process. Sigma’s PrintRite3D uniquely leverages thermal signatures to monitor the quality of each part in the production process, layer by layer and in real time, using artificial intelligence to predict flaws in the melt pool during production. This approach allows machine operators to correct or stop production of a defective part, which results in reduced error rates and higher yields. The sector has been searching for proven tools and techniques to improve quality, cut costs and scale production. This incredibly sophisticated and powerful technology holds tremendous value for the 3D-metal-printing industry. Changing the Landscape “We may know the specifications of the raw materials used, but we still have limited knowledge of how those materials are changed through the AM processes,” stated a recent Forbes article that featured Sigma Labs. The article further explained, “While legacy manufacturing techniques have decades, or even centuries, of scientific study into all the physical characteristics of what they produce, the new forming methods of AM have, at best, very incomplete data.” The advent of Sigma Labs’ revolutionary PrintRite3D software changes the landscape, not only providing needed data but also delivering the ability to control the process to ensure the quality of each layer of every part during the additive manufacturing process. Sigma’s technology is real-time metallurgy, providing assurances that the microstructure of the metal is precise and meets exacting specifications. Emerging technologies such as AI, robotics and 3D printing are disrupting the manufacturing industry and unlocking new ideas and potential that were previously unimaginable