Siemens NX Software Now Incorporates Materialise Additive Manufacturing Technology

Today, Siemens and Materialise announced that they have integrated Materialise additive manufacturing technology into Siemens’ NX software, a product development system that, just a few weeks ago, incorporated topology optimization technology from Frustum into its functionality. NX combines computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) capabilities to enable fast, streamlined product development and manufacture, and the new partnership with Materialise will enhance the additive manufacturing potential of the software.

Materialise’s technology will allow NX users to prepare CAD models for powder bed fusion and material jetting 3D printing processes, potentially reducing the time required to go from product design to completed 3D printed part by 30 percent or more. In addition, an agreement between the two companies allows Siemens’ product lifecycle management (PLM) business to sell the integrated solution through its global sales channels.

“Today’s announcement represents a huge leap forward in making additive manufacturing a mainstream production practice for our customers,” said Zvi Feuer, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Engineering Software for Siemens PLM Software. “Until now, the additive manufacturing process required manufacturers to work with two separate systems – one for product design, and another to prepare that design for 3D printing. The data translation issues and lack of associativity between these two systems created a process that was time consuming and subject to errors. By eliminating these issues, we are helping to expand the adoption of additive manufacturing as a universally accepted production tool.”

NX software is one of the most widely used digital product development solutions in the world, assisting manufacturers in a number of industries including consumer products, medical devices, machinery and transportation. The newly announced partnership will integrate the software with Materialise’s lattice technology, support structures design, 3D nesting, build tray preparation, and build processors framework technology for additive manufacturing, eliminating the need for data translation and conversion. Not only will this speed design to production, but it will result in better, more accurate prints, and bring additive manufacturing another step closer to an actual manufacturing technology, rather than just a prototyping method.

“Additive manufacturing is a reality now, even in highly regulated markets like aerospace and healthcare,” said Johan Pauwels, Executive Vice President at Materialise. “By bringing together solutions from Siemens and Materialise, we are optimizing and simplifying the workflow for design, engineering and manufacturing of components. For the past 25 years, our neutral backbone of solutions has pushed the boundaries of additive manufacturing technologies. We’re pleased to partner with Siemens, who truly understands large-scale industrial manufacturing environments and shares our belief that designers and engineers can create better products if additive manufacturing is embedded into their mainstream business processes.”

We looked to Materialise to learn more about the integration, and Pauwels expanded on his thoughts, telling 3DPrint.com:

“3D printing has become a part of the manufacturing toolkit, and manufacturers are beginning to understand that they need to improve processes surrounding this tool. The solution we have developed with Siemens seamlessly closes the loop between product design and 3D printers, eliminating common issues in an effort to advance additive manufacturing as a full-scale production technology.”

The technology is available in the current version of NX (11.0.1), in new additive manufacturing-targeted modules. You can learn more about the software and the partnership during the keynote speech from Andreas Saar, VP Manufacturing Engineering Solutions at Siemens, at the Materialise World Summit, which is taking place in Brussels on April 20 and 21. 3DPrint.com will be at the Summit, and we will bring you the details about Saar’s speech, which will be given on April 20, as well as the rest of the conference! Discuss in the Materialise Siemens forum at 3DPB.com.