SLM Solutions Group AG (www.slm-solutions.com), a supplier of metal-based additive manufacturing (AM) technology, has signed a co-operation agreement with Authentise Inc, which is a US-based provider of software for automating AM processes.

When using SLM machines, software developed by Authentise is said to help customers expand their AM capacities through greater efficiency, transparency and quality.

SLM board member Henner Schöne-born said: “We’re very pleased to launch this partnership with Authentise, as it represents an expansion of our existing Industry 4.0 initiatives and solutions.

The collaboration enables our customers to access real-time production data from SLM machines — a capability that is enormously important, especially for those that use our machines for series manufacturing.

"With this partnership, we’re taking an important step towards the fully automated processing of orders on our machines.”

Andre Wegner, Authentise CEO, said: “This partnership with SLM is an important step that will allow the direct data
access to SLM machines to be combined with other functionalities of our 3Diax software modules and automate manual tasks.

"For example, it is possible to automatically update an order status or generate documentation that enables
finished components to be traced back to source.”