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The purpose of this paper is to study cyber-enabled manufacturing systems (CeMS) for additive manufacturing (AM). The technology of AM or solid free-form fabrication has received considerable attention in recent years. Several public and private interests are exploring AM to find solutions to manufacturing problems and to create new opportunities. For AM to be commercially accepted, it must make products reliably and predictably. AM processes must achieve consistency and be reproducible.

An approach we have taken is to foster a basic research program in CeMS for AM. The long-range goal of the program is to achieve the level of control over AM processes for industrial acceptance and wide-use of the technology. This program will develop measurement, sensing, manipulation and process control models and algorithms for AM by harnessing principles underpinning cyber-physical systems (CPS) and fundamentals of physical processes.

This paper describes the challenges facing AM and the goals of the CeMS program to meet them. It also presents preliminary results of studies in thermal modeling and process models.

The development of CeMS concepts for AM should address issues such as part quality and process dependability, which are key for successful application of this disruptive rapid manufacturing technology.

In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) printer-based manufacturing line and supporting system, which supports personalized/customized manufacturing for individual businesses or start-up companies, was studied to evaluate the practicality of using additive manufacturing for personalization/mass customization.

First, factory-as-a-service (FaaS) system, which provides factory as a service to customers, was proposed and designed to manufacture various products within a distributed manufacturing environment. This system includes 3D printer-based material extrusion processes, vapor machine/computer numerical control machines as post-processes and assembly and inspection processes with an automated material handling robot in the factory. Second, a virtualization module for the FaaS factory was developed using a simulation model interfaced with a cloud-based order and production-planning system and an internet-of-things-based control and monitoring system. This is part of the system for manufacturing operations, which is capable of dynamic scheduling in a distributed manufacturing environment. In addition, simulation-based virtual production was conducted to verify and evaluate the FaaS factory for the target production scenario. Main information of the simulation also has been identified and included in the virtualization module. Finally, the established system was applied in a sample production scenario to evaluate its practicality and efficiency.

Additive manufacturing is a reliable, feasible and applicable technology, and it can be a core element in smart manufacturing and the realization of personalization/mass customization.

Various studies on additive manufacturing have been conducted with regard to replacing the existing manufacturing methods or integrating with them, but these studies mostly focused on materials or types of additive manufacturing, with few advanced or applied studies on the establishment of a new manufacturing environment for personalization/mass customization.