3YOURMIND receives new funding to introduce machine learning in its AM software suite

The investment bank of Berlin awarded 3YOURMIND with €1.3 million in Pro FIT funding, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Initially funded through EOS’s AMVentures program, 3YOURMIND software has been optimizing the industrial 3D printing/additive manufacturing value chain for leading manufacturers in the US and Europe.

This new funding will be used to extend machine learning applications throughout their software suite. For companies entering into or scaling their additive manufacturing, 3YOURMIND software helps identify AM suitable parts from existing inventories. For companies and 3D printing services who are already actively 3D printing, the software suite becomes their digital access point for accurate pricing, file management, automated order processing and transparent tracking of the production floor. Adding machine learning to these processes will push additive manufacturing towards the level of the automation promised in industry 4.0.

AM ripe for machine learning

3YOURMIND is considered a leading software to optimize additive manufacturing workflows. In 2016, their Order Management solution created an online B2B software to automate processing and management of 3D print orders. Beginning in 2017,  the AM Part Identifier was introduced to reveal the strongest 3D printing use cases using software algorithms in order to increase the number of parts entering into additive manufacturing. In 2018, the company launched the Agile Manufacturing Execution System (Agile MES) to create transparent and optimized production floor scheduling. Now, in 2019, in addition to building out machine connectivity, 3YOURMIND will focus on interlinking with machine learning to improve depth of optimization, lower processing costs and move additive manufacturing towards truly automated production streams, as part of the company’s long-term vision for AM.

More specifically, 3YOURMIND will use the Pro FIT funding to add artificial neural networks (ANNs) into their software. ANNs are the leading approach for programming challenges which have little or no explicit, systematic knowledge available. As a relatively young industry, additive manufacturing is still developing process documentation and best practice techniques for industrial-scale production. This is especially true when looking at serial additive manufacturing.

“Our software makes it simple and cost effective for companies to enter and scale additive manufacturing. By adding more machine learning to our software we will multiply the effectiveness of AM programs. AM is already a data-driven production method and we are the leading company to focus on connecting and optimizing workflows using that data. 3YOURMIND is developing the software infrastructure for a level of automation we call agile manufacturing; the ability to quickly and accurately adapt production to customer needs and company resources.“Stephan Kühr, CEO, 3YOURMIND

Enabling smart production

Software is the key enabler to speed up the rate of adoption by multiplying the effectiveness of individual design engineers, production engineers and division managers. The 3YOURMIND deep tech team will analyze part information and platform usage from opt-in environments and evaluate non-sensitive data to identify and codify patterns. Each development test will be directly cycled into the software for further validation. The 3YOURMIND customer list includes leading AM minds from both Europe and the U.S. that will be used to train the software.

Peter Schwarz, Project Manager at förderbar confirmed that “3YOURMIND has already proven its innovative strength, efficiency through strong cooperation in the past. We know they will use the new funding to “add speed to AM adoption”. We are proud to support them securing the funding of 1.3 million euros, and help 3YOURMIND to further extend its technological lead.”

To summarize, 3YOURMIND now offers a suite of solutions for the most pressing challenges that the AM industry is facing: AM Part Selection, Production Recommendations, Automatic Production Scheduling, Nesting and Orientation Optimization and input of 2D drawings. All these components will benefit from their machine learning program.

The Pro FIT Berlin project “Smart 3D-printing” is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and from the Research, Innovation and Technology Promotion Program (Pro FIT) of the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB). The research project began in October 2018 and will continue over two years including the programming development work to integrate machine learning directly into the 3YOURMIND software suite.