Patent Application
20190213544
The present invention relates to apparatuses, systems, computer readable media, and methods for the provision of services concerning creating a order specifications and coordinating orders for manufacturing and distribution of three-dimensional items.
Current plastics-oriented manufacturing processes, including process for injection molding of plastics and additive manufacturing technologies (often referred to as “3D printing”), are characterized by long lead times for concept development, engineering modeling, tooling etc. In addition, there can be long with times for equipment availability as machine capacities are often reserved many months in advance of actual production. The need to make such reservations long in advance of actual production runs often means that product designs must be “frozen” months in advance of such production, with any later design changes causing the need for expensive and lengthy tooling and, sometimes, equipment modifications. As a result of these and other issues, production equipment often goes unused for extended periods of time as developers are unwilling to commit to production until designs have been fully vetted and validated.
The above and other aspects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:
The present invention provides a computer-based platform for “manufacturing as a service” (MAAS) that leverages this unutilized capacity of production equipment and exposes it to developers seeking to have their designs fabricated. The platform allows suppliers, especially those with plastics industry expertise, to register capacities for injection molding equipment, 3D printing equipment, toolings, raw materials, etc. Developers are afforded the opportunity to specify their needs through design files, fabrication preferences and quantities, etc. based on the supplier information stored in one or more databases, the platform then provides real-time quotes for services that will meet the developer's specified needs and preferences at production facilities in or with access to geographies and/or markets of interest to the developer. The quotes can be provided at any level of granularity desired by the developer, and may include total costs of production throughout a supply chain based on current market data, historical market data, and/or reasoned analysis. Various quotes may be provided by different suppliers, and information, including, optionally, customer feedback, provided concerning these suppliers, so as to allow the developer to make informed decisions about where to have designs fabricated.
In addition to simply offering quotes for the provided designs, options provided by the present platform may allow for “lightweighting” of a developer's design so as to reduce the weight and/or cost of a finished product. For example, the platform may offer access to a system for optimizing a design based on developer-provided constraints for specified parameters. Further, costs and timings for specialized toolings required for manufacture may be quoted based on producing of such implements using identified or user-selected additive manufacturing capabilities managed via the present platform. Finally, the present platform may also provide developers with options for selecting distribution solutions of the finished products.
From a user-developer's standpoint, the platform provides an interface for the developer to supply information concerning the design/product to be manufactured (e.g., in the form of drawings, specification, etc.), preferences/requirements for the place of manufacture, quantities, materials, etc. based on this information, and the stored database of suppliers' capacities, capabilities, etc., the platform determines and provides a “best price” solution and presents same to the developer. In some cases, the developer may be provided only this best price solution, but more generally the developer may be provided with a number of solutions, which may be ranked according to various criteria, and afforded the option to choose one or more from among them.
In some cases, prior to choosing a solution, the developer may be provided with options for optimizing the design, for example based on topology (weight), manufacturing location, shipping logistics, materials used, additive manufacturing technology and/or other manufacturing processes to be employed, etc. These optimization options draw upon information stored by the platform concerning the various suppliers available to meet the requested manufacturing project. The design parameters and optimizations may be specified through an iterative process in which the developer tracks price/time options through different combinations of such selections. In some cases, the platform may provide the user with a layout of various manufacturing options (e.g., ones that optimize around different parameters or sets of parameters) to allow for side-by-side comparisons.
Ultimately, the developer makes a selection and places an order for the manufacture of the provided design. The order may be based on one of the optimized solutions provided by the platform, or may be a completely user-specified manufacturing solution that selects individual options from different solutions offered by the platform. In some cases, the selection may be made based on individually negotiated terms with a manufacturer, where the present platform provides a communication facility for a developer to enter into such negotiations with one or more manufacturers. Alternatively, or in addition, the platform may facilitate an auction process where suppliers are able to offer individualized quotes for a project or portion(s) thereof. The use of such auctions is especially useful in cases where little to no custom toolings, etc. are required and all that is needed is raw materials and machine capacity. The platform also allows a developer to track the process of an order through the manufacturing and delivery (and, if necessary, return) processes.
Client 110 may be any technically feasible variety of client computing device, including a desktop computer, laptop computer, mobile device, and so forth. Network 150 may be any technically feasible set of interconnected communication links, including a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet, among others. Server 150 may be any technically feasible type of server computing device, including a remote virtualized instance of a computing device, one or more physical cloud-based computing devices, a mixture of the two, a portion of a datacenter, and so forth.
Client 110 includes processor 112, input/output (I/O) devices 114, and memory 116, coupled together. Processor 112 may be any technically feasible form of processing device configured process data and execute program code. Processor 112 could be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and so forth. I/O devices 114 may include devices configured to receive input, including, for example, a keyboard, a mouse, and so forth. I/O devices 114 may also include devices configured to provide output, including, for example, a display device, a speaker, and so forth. I/O devices 114 may further include devices configured to both receive and provide input and output, respectively, including, for example, a touchscreen, a universal serial bus (USB) port, and so forth.
Memory 116 may be any technically feasible storage medium configured to store data and software applications. Memory 116 could be, for example, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM) module, a read-only memory (ROM), and so forth, including a combination of such storage mediums. Memory 116 includes client-side design application 120 and client-side database 122. Client-side design application 120 is a software application that, when executed by processor 112, causes processor 112 to generate a rendering of an object. In doing so, client-side design application 120 may access client-side database 122.
Server 150 includes processor 152, 110 devices 154, and memory 156, coupled together. Processor 152 may be any technically feasible form of processing device configured to process data and execute program code, including a CPU, a GPU, an ASIC, an FPGA, and so forth. I/O devices 114 may include devices configured to receive input, devices configured to provide output, and devices configured to both receive and provide input and output, respectively. Memory 156 may be any technically feasible storage medium configured to store data and software applications, including a hard disk, a RAM module, a ROM, and so forth, including combinations of the foregoing. Memory 156 includes server-side application 140 and server-side database 142. Server-side application 140 is a software application that, when executed by processor 156, causes processor 152 to perform the functions of the platform for manufacturing as a service as described herein. In doing so, server-side application 140 may access server-side database 142. Server-side application 140 may also interoperate with client-side design application 120 and access client-side database 122.
Also communicably coupled to server 150 via network 130 are one or more supplier systems 160-a-160-n. Supplier systems 160-a-160-n may be servers and associated databases instantiated at one or more supplier locations to provide server 150 with information concerning respective supplier capacities, etc., and to accept orders, participate in auctions, etc., as discussed above. The supplier systems each may include processor, memory, and other resources, similar to those included in client 110 and server 150.
In operation, client-side application 120 and server-side application 140, cooperate to implement the MAAS functionality described herein, based on information obtained from the supplier systems and computational processes provide by server 150. In doing so, either one or both of client-side application 120 and server-side application 14 may access either one or both of client-side database 122 and server-side database 142.
Generally, through client-side application 120, a developer-user generates a design for an article of manufacture that satisfies criteria associated with user-defined constraints. That design is provided to server 150 via a user interface, and server-side application 140 may further receive input from the developer-user that allows for the provision of price and delivery quotes based on desired parameters that the manufacturing and delivery of the article should and/or must comply with. Such input may be assisted through a prompt-and-response dialog between the server-side application and the developer-user in which the developer-user is guided through a set of questions tailored to the article being manufactured and/or desired manufacturing/delivery technologies to be employed. For example, if the article to be manufactured can be produced in any of several additive manufacturing processes, the system may guide the developer-user through selection of a preferred process by prompting the user to supply information concerning raw materials, pricing, delivery times, etc. Over time, the system may develop and maintain a database of designs that can be drawn upon (e.g., as examples) for assisting with new designs for various articles.
Based on the design parameters and constraints entered, server-side application 140 then generates a custom quote the manufacture/delivery of the article, optionally optimized for the specified parameters, constraints, a specified or recommended manufacturing process (e.g., 3D printing, injection molding, etc.), etc. and delivers the quote in a format suited to the user's preference. To develop the quote, server-side application 140 searches database 142 to identify and retrieve information relevant to available capacities for meeting the design outlined by the constraints (i.e., type of manufacturing process, material considerations, etc.) and uses this information, along with the design information entered by the developer-user as parameters for producing the quote.
One of the advantages of this technique is that the end-user need not attempt to consider all possible approaches to solving the manufacturing problem, or delivery options. Further, server-side application 140 can also generate actual designs for supplier systems 160a-160n based on those approaches, thereby alleviating the burden of generating designs from the developer-user. Server-side application 140 may invoke various data and processing stages in performing the processes described herein. For example, the application may include a module for receiving input of a design file (in various formats), a module for defining design constraints, an optional module for selection of optimization algorithm(s) (where such selection is permitted) and performing such optimizations, and a module for delivering a quote based on an optimized design (or other output, as appropriate). Database 142 includes data that is processed by server-side application 140 when performing these tasks.
While the preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that there is no intent to limit the invention by such disclosure, but rather, is intended to cover all modifications and alternate constructions falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/614,843, filed on Jan. 8, 2018, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62614843 | Jan 2018 | US |
