Additive Manufacturing Domain
A second, unrelated industrial world: how physical parts get produced on demand, and why running that process well requires dedicated software.
05.1 AM fundamentals
Additive Manufacturing (AM), commonly known as 3D printing, builds physical parts by adding material layer by layer, guided by a digital design file, rather than removing material from a block (machining) or forming it in a mould (casting). This matters industrially for a specific reason: it makes it economical to produce a single part, or a small batch, on demand, without the tooling and lead time that traditional manufacturing methods require.
For industries like oil and gas, maritime, and defence, this is significant. A critical spare part that would traditionally take months to source, or require holding expensive inventory just in case, can instead be produced close to where it is needed, when it is needed. This is the commercial logic behind the Omnifactory.
05.2 How an AM factory runs operationally
Producing a single 3D-printed part is a demonstration. Running a factory that reliably produces certified, traceable industrial parts at scale is an operations problem, and it is this operations problem that ADAM OS exists to manage. A typical build moves through several stages:
- Job intake. A part request comes in, from an internal team or an external customer, specifying what is needed and to what standard.
- Build preparation. The digital design is prepared for printing: orientation, supports, and machine-specific parameters are set.
- Printing. The part is built on the appropriate machine. Machine and material data during the build matters for later traceability and certification.
- Post-processing. Support removal, surface finishing, heat treatment, or other steps required before the part is usable.
- Quality control. The finished part is inspected and verified against specification, echoing the same inspection logic covered in the Asset Integrity Domain, applied here to a newly manufactured part rather than an ageing asset.
- Traceability and certification. Every unit produced needs a traceable record, material batch, machine used, operator, QC results, tied to a per-unit Certificate of Conformity (CoC).
- Dispatch. The certified part is released to the customer.
Every one of these stages generates data that must be captured correctly and never lost, since certification and regulatory compliance in these industries depend on being able to prove exactly how a part was made. This is precisely the operational complexity that creates the need for a dedicated Manufacturing Execution System (MES), which is what ADAM OS is. The next page covers ADAM OS itself, including the hub-and-spoke model for coordinating multiple manufacturing locations.