CEO NEWS & UPDATES
This page serves as a database for every monthly email that our CEO Andre sends to a handpicked group of people.
These emails serve as a recap for what has been done recently, what's cooking behind the scenes and what are generally. If you're interested in receiving the update, please enter your details below. We'll include you as soon as your entry has been reviewed.
2026
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2025
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2024
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2023
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2022
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2021
Expanding Printers 🖨
A bit late this week because I took a vacation. No, really – first time in 10 years without internet for more than a couple hours. Out in the sticks, away from it all:
Obviously, hiking through the Rwenzori mountain range (the source of the Nile) and seeing Gorillas 🦍 was special itself. But even more amazing was how the team just continued pushing forward. They don’t really need me anymore!
While I was gone they delivered on multiple fronts, all while managing deadlines for several large projects:
1) More machines connected
We’ve been steadily broadening the range of machines that we can get data from in response both to demand and to movement in the industry. Over the past few years the large OEMs have been finally waking up and proving official APIs, making our job easier. We took advantage of that and are among the first to support both Formlabs Form 2 and 3 as well as most remaining Stratasys machines we didn’t already. From what it sounds like we’re among the first (if not the first) to support the J750 for example.
2) Permissions extended
Group qualifications have been extended to more resources so that you can now manage who is allowed to do what action across the entire process. This includes making sure that only those with the right training are operating your M400’s, for example. You’ll also be able to make sure that only those people with the right permissions can edit critical resources like your workflows.
All this is in addition to smaller tickets that always happen in reaction to ideas by customers. For example: you can now rename line items with your own serial numbers.
Now that I’m well rested I’m keen to push on again. That means talking to you, too. Please give me a call or schedule a time to talk at any point. I’d love to hear from you.
Speak soon
Andre
Flexibility 🤸♀
We haven’t had any sun in the UK this summer (surprise, surprise!), which means that the UK developers haven’t had much of an reason to be outside. Good for feature development (as you’ll see below), not great for them. So I was excited to at least give folks an excuse to leave the building for our first ever team gathering in the UK.
The offshoot is that y’all got some great features this month. The trend is definitely towards giving users more flexibility/ability to configure their own solution in more ways. This has been a goal of ours for a long time, and I’m glad we’re finally getting the chance to move in that direction:
Users can now configure their own dropdowns to add to the work instructions for shopfloor app users.
Users can also now add additional costs (such as extra materials, design time, etc) to Line Items easily.
There’s more configurability coming to pricing soon. As are changes to the way the whole order is managed.
If you want to hear more about those upcoming changes, you’ll have to wait until next month, or meet our team at Rapid in Chicago the week after next. We don’t have a booth but Derek is around, and would be delighted to sit down with you. Just let me know or book a slot here.
Hope there are at least some of you who got to enjoy a few of the last summer rays. Wishing we were with you 🌧!
Andre
Assemblies 🧱
We’re a week away from our final delivery on the second of 2 major deployments. To say the team’s delighted is an understatement. It’s taken months of hard toil to get here. It’s a big achievement that will set up Authentise for years to come. To give you an example of just how transformative this is, let me tell you about just one of many improvements that were made as part of this delivery: Assemblies.
The new assemblies and product feature gives users the ability to define, produce and assemble Products made from multiple Line Items including managing the Assembly Instructions. With it, you can upload ZIP files and automatically unpacking them into a Product made from individual parts. Those parts are Line Items in the aMES and have all the ability to define materials, machines, workflows etc that you already know.
One Product can have multiple Assemblies, each of which has assembly instructions and project management type activities (you can set review status centrally at the Product or Assembly level. Might be a bit fast, but have a look:
You can see how transformative this is for Authentise. There’s so much opportunity to build on Assemblies and Products. I can’t wait for these to become a feature in the Model Library for example.
But before I ask the team to do any more, it’s time for a break. We’ve got a vacation rota going, and a few team meetings planned. Looking forward to reconnect as humans, not stressed cybermonkeys.
If you have time to connect too, let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
Andre
Clarity 💎
Howling storms here, and my wife is preparing for a Halloween kids party like no other, which I am sure to be roped into, so I will keep this short.
There are so many changes that have happened as a result of our team listening to clients over the past months, but one stood out in particular to me: The updates that were made to the QR app to make things clearer. In one fell swoop we bought clarity in 4 ways:
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Specific statement of what run is being worked on
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Information about the next run coming up on that workstation
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If work instruction entry is required, guidance on what range is within tolerance
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Next steps for each of the parts in the build.
Frankly, I am kicking myself for not seeing some of these when we built it. But having caught them now with the help of our users, and having addressed them so quickly makes me very proud of the team.
Same is true for some of the larger changes that are happening. I spoke to you about assemblies recently, but having sat through a few demos of it now I didn’t realize that there was more to it, specifically: the difference between co-printed and standard assemblies:
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Standard assemblies are what I demonstrated last time: the ability to print multiple parts, potentially in different printers and with different materials/finishes, and assemble them to a common object.
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Co-printed assemblies are arguably more common, especially among multi-material printers from Stratasys and others. These require a definition of different colours and materials at different parts of what is essentially the same object. They can’t be separated and are built on the same machine in the same build.
With every conversation I have, more detail emerges on what is possible with additive. To distinguish these two types of assemblies in such a structurally meaningful way doesn’t only solve our partners needs today, but gives us the platform to build on and address tomorrow’s issues too.
Several of those issues are already being discussed: Can we integrate simulation as backend processes, find additive “as designed” parts in the “as printed” parts to make probe point identification easier, manage consumable inventory, automatically suggest areas in which parameters are to vary within a single object, and much more. If you want to hear some of our thoughts, log in to my ASTM ICAM session with Andy Imrie from Lloyd’s Register this Wednesday.
We’d love to discuss both our current solutions and future opportunities with you directly. Please just find a time or, if you’ll be at Formnext, let’s meet in person. Find us at our booth or book a time. At that time, I’ll also be able to talk to you about an announcement that’s forthcoming this week.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you. There’s so much to do, we have to work together! Onwards, with clarity.
Andre
Releases 📤
We’re back from Formnext, and exhausted. What a week. I had something like 45 meetings in 4 days and the rest of the team is similar. So the Thanksgiving weekend was a welcome opportunity to unwind! I may now be in England, but my wife still takes it very seriously. So Happy Thanksgiving!! 🦃
I didn’t have my usual Formnext Flu after returning, but 2 of our team did get sick with COVID, so I’m beginning to wonder about the wisdom of holding a big tradeshow in the middle of a still-raging pandemic.
We used Formnext to set off the announcement of a whole slew of activities and partnerships. I want to tell you about them today, because I’m excited. Please don’t share though, because 2 of them are still under news embargo. 🤫
The first one is not: it’s the announcement of a major, £1.7 grant we’ve been awarded together with a stellar consortium by the UK’s Research and Innovation agency. We’re pretty excited about the aims of the 2-year project: to create a system that makes it easier to enforce rules that have been identified previously (in research and standards, for instance) and dynamically, by running tests and deploying deep learning on existing data capture. We’re committed to enabling a more reliably production, and I think the SAMRCD project is a tangible step in that direction. Read more about it here.
It’s also a sign that we’ve properly arrived in Europe with our UK subsidiary, Authentise Ltd. Our second announcement (due out December 9th) shows that too – a partnership with the leading de-powdering equipment provider, Solukon. They’ve become friends over the last year and we share a joint mission to industrialize the process. Their inclusion of a range of sensors into their equipment gave rise to a conversation about what they could be used for and we’ve developed a pretty compelling approach to the use of data such as inclusion in the traceability report, measurement of waste powder, and, ultimately, automatic toolpathing based on design. This will be the first time that we include non-additive, post-processing data into our data-stream and we couldn’t be more excited to do it with Solukon.
Speaking of novel integrations: We’re also announcing (Dec 2nd) an integration with Riven. They’ve developed an astonishing sensor+algorithm package that makes it possible to detect the flaws in as-printed designs, and deliver the compensation for those flaws, in a fraction of the time it currently takes. We’re excited to be integrating their output, as well as providing some of the required data (such as as-designed CAD and parameters) because the reduced iteration times help get us to where the industry needs to be: fast, reliable production designs.
There are so many more integrations that are possible, and automations that need to be brought into reality in pursuit of that goal. But working with Riven and Solukon is an excellent start.
We look forward to working with you in that pursuit too! Speak soon!
Andre
What a year 🎉
Quick note from Spain – a welcome break to celebrate the last year and get excited for the next one. We have a lot to be grateful for: Thanks to our incredible users and partners – who have pushed and encouraged us at every step – the company has really grown up this year. Not only are we financially sustainable (such a rarity in this industry), but we’ve added important users across major verticals and key features to boot. Check out this summary video to get a sense of it all.
As mentioned in the video, in the final release of the year we added a critical feature for our service bureaus: Increased flexibility when quoting. While we do our best to deliver accurate automated quotes with our toolpath integrations and machine learning approaches, corrections often need to be made in process for a number of different reasons. It’s important to capture those not only to issue the correct quote (and properly plan the resulting process steps) but also to allow the system to learn from corrections and update the machine learning algorithms.
Adding these manual workarounds is what makes our work of building aMES so incremental. Before intelligence can really come to the fore, we need to make sure that the manual options exist. Where they don’t, we need our users and partners to guide us. So thank you, once again, for your support in 2021. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are so we hope we can count on your suggestions, energy, recommendations, references, and custom for many years to come.
We hope you enter the year renewed after a restful family break. We’re excited for 2022. We hope you are too.
Andre
2020
Overcoming the toughest security concerns
Excited to be reporting from the third week of the Boeing Accelerator for Industry 4.0. We’re here to understand how we can make the current product better, and to discuss our plans for a new product that we’re planning to tell you more about in the coming months.
Right now, our sole focus is on improving product features, and delighting customers. They’re loving the new features, such as one I mentioned last time – the ability to edit runs from an app, during the process. So now, if a part isn’t ready for the post processing, you can just tell the system you want to exclude it from the next stage by scanning a QR code:
There is a lot that’s happening that’s not necessarily User Interface focused: For example allowing you to script your own Quoting algorithm. That’s now standard in our toolset. If you have a complex, proprietary method of calculating your own pricing – you can use the data we help you capture and use your algorithm to process it. The system has long since allowed you to use quoting algorithms of other providers, such as our partner Prosper3D. This and the new ability to use your own proprietary method is a show of our objective to build the most open software system available in manufacturing. Nearly a dozen external services are now accessible via Authentise.
But openness doesn’t mean that it’s not secure, however. Fresh on the heels of announcing ITAR compliance a few months back, this month extended our enhanced security suite to offer a range of additional features:
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Biannual Penetration Testing
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Enhanced Logging
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User determined Data Location
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Enhanced IDS (intrusion detection) and IPS (intrusion prevention)
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Improved Firewall
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Automated time out for users (optional)
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Permission to Audit security process
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Hard Tokens
With these features in place, our cloud option overcomes even the toughest security concerns, though of course we always have the private cloud or on-premise solutions if required.
More news coming next month – several simultaneous high profile deployments going at the same time at the moment, so Authentise is learning lots while we go.
Andre
Productivity in Crisis
Hi all,
Wow. What a month. I hope you’re all safe and sound. Our team has been watching the awful, worldwide pandemic from afar, safely at home. Fortunately, with team members around the world (in the UK, Italy, Ukraine, Canada, and the US) we have a lot of experience with remote work. Even so, we had to learn a few things. Some of those learnings are here.
We’re obviously also trying to help fight the health crisis in multiple ways:
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We’re supporting the amazing open source community helping deliver hundreds of thousands of face visors.
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Our offer of free licenses for Authentise MES has been taken up by organizations looking to scale their additive responses
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We’re supporting a major initiative to deliver a qualified marketplace of parts.
Despite the distractions, the team has worked tirelessly on those small improvements that help companies manage their workflow more effectively. Some of them include:
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The ability to duplicate orders and line items
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The ability to customize the QR-code traveler used to track parts through the process in conjunction with the app.
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A smarter way to search with filtering in drop-down boxes.
Lot’s more coming, hopefully in quieter times. We are finding that, while most of our clients are still producing, this is also a time to focus on process – so we’re busier than ever working with clients, helping them deploy, understanding their needs. I you have any questions or comments to add during this time, please do get in touch.
Stay safe!
Andre
Vanity & beyond
Busy, short month here. Everybody is healthy, thank goodness, so full steam ahead!
We released a slew of smaller features this month (some of these are still in staging, so will be visible to the users in the next few days). Some of these include:
Vanity Domains: Authentise now supports the usage of Vanity Domains for individual hosted instances, both hosted directly by Authentise, as well as when hosted in clients cloud solution. So now you can name your site 3dprint.customer.com like you always wanted. We will expand this to customers hosted in multi-client installs in the coming months.
Run Page Search: As our customers grow, so do we – because the run and order index pages couldn’t handle the load of our bigger clients, we rebuilt them. Now search and scanning through for orders is a breeze.
Packaging Slip: We’ve expanded our document generation capability as well. Now we’re automatically generating a standard packing slip which contains the relevant order, customer, and shipping information necessary.
There are some really exciting features coming next month, so keep your eyes peeled. Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to AMUG later this month (let’s meet there, I’d love to hear from you in person), and will be presenting at the Boeing Accelerator for Industry 4.0 that same week – so if you’re in London, join us.
Thanks, as always, for your support. If you can’t make it to AMUG, let me know if you have time to catch up virtually. We’re always keen to hear from you!
Stay well,
Andre
Announcing Material Genealogy
What an exciting month! Not only are we trying to cope with COVID and having kids at home, but we’re also being productive at work. I hope you’re healthy and that you’re not letting the onslaught get to you. Our team just got a box of coffee/tea box (not British tea, much to my dismay) to help get them through this mess, and started asking others how they’re coping on our new weekly video series. Check it out on Youtube or just subscribe to our LinkedIn. While you’re at it, check out our new website too!
The coffee seems to have helped because a core new feature I’ve been teasing for a while has gone into beta (drumroll please XX): Material Genealogy Management. This feature is a critical extension to our inventory management tools, especially where metal powders are concerned. This feature is used in both the main website and the mobile app. Let me explain.
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In the main site, the user can now create a new material batch and print related QR codes for both machines and materials.
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In the mobile app, they will scan the material they want to manage and can take a range of actions such as loading it into a machine, test, sieve, blend and more.
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This action, along with all other actions are logged and are accessible in a traceability report of each material, which is attached to the part report.
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The material history is also visible as a genealogy tree in the main site, with several features including the ability to view all or none of the actions, or see the tree beginning with the material, or ending with it.
For serious production centres, material genealogy plays an incredibly important role – and one that is still very poorly understood. This tool will help our users understand what happened to a material, and associate it to any resulting part performance issues. Armed with that knowledge, managers will be able to decide once and for all whether they can reduce the amount of virgin material, how many reuses are possible and more. That increases part quality while reducing cost. Frankly, it is astonishing to me that we don’t have this knowledge yet, but I’m incredibly proud of our team for resolving that issue now, once and for all.
Of course, other issues were solved too, and more features created – but I’ll tell you about them next time.
Till then, stay safe!
Andre
Growing up + In-process Monitoring
We’ve been running hard at building new features over the past month, motivated by the fact that we’re supporting any companies on the frontline of keeping the economy open and critical equipment available. Just how hard the team’s been running wasn’t clear to me until this week when I noticed features popping up that I never heard of us working on. Small things like:
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Smart fields, so you can find what you need faster
2. Categories in the GANTT charts for those with dozens of stations in their shops
3. Material Families were introduced to help you find your orders faster: You can find materials based on whether they are sand, metal, ceramic or other
There are many more improvements aside this month: for instance, an updated quote display that shows you the price per part as well as in total, or the ability to receive information about the status of every single part in a single API call (extending our Microsoft Flow integration even further). To be honest, I knew about those two but that doesn’t distract from the fact that in a very hard time the growing team (we’re 15 people now), has done an incredible job working autonomously on specific customer issues that I’m no longer even aware of. It’s like seeing a kid grow up - I’m super proud of the team.
One last thing to mention: We’ve become especially interested in integrating computer vision systems into Authentise. It’s the natural place for them to live as we understand the context and are the system of record for any manufacturing traceability data. There are two projects going on at the moment: One is the integration of a in-process system by the startup Addiguru (press release forthcoming, but some details here). The other is actually run by a different organization (AMEXCI), which we’re supporting: they are trying to get as much EOS M290 camera data as possible to train their models. If you’re interested in participating (and we encourage you to do so), please sign up here: https://amexci.com/rosetta-protocol-call-for-action/
In the end, there will be more than one algorithm and Authentise will work with them all: Our dozen+ third party modules already show – Authentise is the platform to tie in innovative tools along the Digital Thread of Additive Manufacturing.
If you have questions, please do reach out! See you soon!
Andre
Re-scheduling
I seem to have skipped last month, which is unlike me – normally Cosimo gives me 1000 reminders. Maybe the continued COVID distractions (I hope everybody is safe) caused the blip. Another reason might be that we’re in the middle of a major initiative around scheduling: Scheduling for additive is a fiendishly challenging subject and in the first half of the year we developed a long list of things that we wanted to improve, despite the fact that there’s already a comprehensive set of features that automatically organized production plans. The new list includes steps such as scheduling whole builds, allowing workflows to “join” together, allowing specimen “splits” to happen at any point of the workflow and more. Having tried our best to both define and validate the tasks as much as possible we finally got going and have delivered:
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Ability to schedule to specific workstations instead of groups of workstations
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Ability to switch between different workstations
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Allowing workflow changes mid-production.
This last item is a critical element for more intelligent rework options: To date, we’ve only captured fail cause and errored the item out if rework was selected. Now, the user will also have the option of re-defining the remaining workflow with new workflow steps and instructions.
This presents an additional challenge since operators are allowed to make workflow changes in some organizations and not others. So I suspect that this change will eventually cause us to have to implement a long-held plan of improving the permissions system beyond controlling simply who can see what, to providing the option of defining what actions are allowed to be completed by whom even if they can see it.
Still lots to go on scheduling. Those stories above represent only 3 of 13 stories we’ve identified. We’d love to hear from you if you have any input into your biggest peeves around scheduling. We’ve spoken to many of you already, but if you have the time for a review of the stories we are planning to help prioritize and ensure our list is comprehensive and that we’re implementing the stories right, please reach out.
Despite our focus on scheduling, we’re getting other things done too. One is speed (one of our pages is 5x faster now!), and we’ve finally integrated the mesh healing module so that parts that are detected as not being watertight can be healed in the MES
In fact, because we’re following guidance from customers quite strictly there are still a number of modules that aren’t integrated into the MES yet. You can see a full list of modules here. My biggest regret is that we have yet to persuade any MES users to take geometric search seriously – such a powerful feature. I hope it will gain more traction as the database of parts grows.
More on scheduling next month! Till then – enjoy the summer if you can!
Andre
Priorities
On time for once, mostly because I’m very excited to share two significant feature updates.
The first involves a completely new way of handling parts and work instructions in the QR app, which we hope has significantly simplified the way you handle even the most complex workflows in future. As always, the upgrade was developed in close collaboration with our existing users. The upgrade now displays all the parts in the run on a single page. It automatically groups those with the same workflows for that process step so that all their work instructions can be handled at the same time – saving you time. You can, of course, also expand the group and handle them separately if you wish, and the app will display other groups if it detects more than one workflow set in the run.
The second major adds a Priority Score to the scheduling algorithm. This builds on insight from Cosimo’s last monthly newsletter, which asked readers what new scheduling features they’d prioritize. We’ve got the responses of those readers. What do you think? Just click a button below.
Maximise build fill with important parts
Adjust scheduling based on priorities
Workflow changes mid-production
The new Priority Score feature allows each part to be assigned a priority score (in the backend we rate from 1-100), which will then filter up to a run/build priority score (The run priority score = the highest part priority score within that run). This score will determine where on the schedule the run will end up. For instance, if build includes 10 parts, all of a medium priority score (say 50) except for 1, which is at 95: This would make the run priority 95 and make it likely that it would be printed before other runs already present in the backlog.
Priority Score Scheduling gives us the ability to handle your own custom prioritization techniques. For instance, if you want the Due Date to be the only driver of your Priority Score we will use that to dynamically adjust the schedule: The Priority Score of the run will increase over time if the run keeps on getting pushed back and the due date is coming closer. Of course, we will also be able to include more complex prioritization factors a manual priority score, or a customer priority score, …
There is no limit to requirements for workflow software. The only way we know which features to prioritize is to hear from you. So, if any of the above has given you ideas for new features, I would love to hear from you.
Look forward to talking with you soon.
Andre
Collaborations
Two major announcements you’ve already heard of if you follow the 3D Printing media or our LinkedIn channel (please do!). We published 2 press releases that highlight collaborations and resulting features we’re very proud of.
The first details a collaboration with Addiguru, a computer vision startup focusing on identifying failure from in-process images (see press release here, including the coverage). Integrating this feature with Authentise has obvious advantages:
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The customer is alerted immediately in a system they’re using anyway.
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Further information is seamlessly added to the traceability report, even if it doesn’t involve a failure.
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We can overlay additional data Authentise receives anyway, such as O2 layer data.
While the full feature is still in deployment, we are incredibly proud of this release as it not only adds really valuable new features, but also shows off our open nature. Closed platforms have slowed the industry down for far too long. I’m fresh off a rant on the topic on Forbes if you’re interested in more. SK, the founder of Addiguru, as well as another partner (ExLattice) and I are also speaking on the subject at AMT’s Smart Manufacturing Experience conference next month – sign up here to join in.
The second release focused on a new feature which we’ve been dying to tell you about, and which we collaborated closely with our customers on to birth: Digital Materials Management. It allows users to track the journey of a material simply with QR codes and our mobile app as powder is sieved, blended, scrapped, printed and more. Tracking these actions is critical as the industry still suffers from a desperate lack of knowledge about the impact powder genealogy has on final part quality. Now data is instantly available in a detailed material traceability report and can be fused with all the remaining contextual data such as geometry, test data or printer sensor data. No other tools do that. We already have the first technical studies running with the tool and couldn’t be more excited to be driving the industry forward. Ultimately, the knowledge this tool gleans can help reduce material waste and lower the requirements for virgin powder which has a 40-50% production yield rate!!
As if that was not enough: The team has made another amazing stride at pushing new features out that make the Authentise platform much more useful to teams. This time: Comments.
We’ve always had a note section, but it was just a simple text field and didn’t do a good job of showing historical information. Now you have the ability of commenting and tagging your colleagues for a conversation which gets saved in a thread. Best – the full conversation is available in the traceability report and your colleagues can’t ignore you because they get emails alerting them to your comment 😊. We have a lot more ideas for this feature so if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear from you.
Wow. I’m exhausted after such a lively September. Can’t promise you the same 1-2 punch next time but I can tell you this: The team is incredible. Not only do they deliver at the rate of knots but they have heart. We’ve been going through several sessions exploring diverse experiences and discuss how we as individuals and collectively at Authentise can do a better job of supporting those from minority backgrounds. I’ll have to tell you about the outcomes another time, but the sessions have reminded me how lucky I am to work with these folks. If you’re reading: thank you!
I’d love to hear from you in person – in the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn.
Cheers,
Andre
Steps
As the World slides back into COVID chaos, we’re still taking steps forward. In particular, our major feature release this month – created in record time: The ability to outsource a specific step to a service provider, rather than just the whole part. This is an obvious use case for all those customers that have production capability in house but lack some testing or post-processing capability.
Now customers in that position can:
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Identify which suppliers are able to complete specific of the workflow (and get them to confirm).
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Define workflows that have a single, or multiple, steps identified that need external processing. We do this by using the “workstation” feature. This is normally used to allow users to define a specific workstation, but in this case also allows users to select that this specific step will be outsourced. If selected, shipment processes are automatically associated.
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Associate a workflow with outsourced steps to a line item.
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Request quotes from a list of approved vendors for that line item. Only those suppliers approved for that process type are displayed.
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Those users already using the supplier management feature to outsource whole parts (which you can still use), will be familiar with the rest of the process: Requesting bids, approving the bids, and monitoring the production process.
Get more detail on this help page. It is exciting to see that the platform and the team has now reached a maturity level that allows us to release even major updates relatively easily. This one just took a couple weeks and it wasn’t like we threw everything we had at it either. We had lots of small and large tickets going on at the same time. Notably, we added a few more printers to our Echo data listener:
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We were lucky to be beta testers of Stratasys’s new API. This has given us more access to Stratasys device data than ever before (and stops us going in the back door 😉)
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EOS was kind enough to give us access to Connect documentation, but they wanted $$$ for support in integrating with their new API so we decided to go it alone. In general, machine vendors seem a little confused about data, how to monetize it and work with their customers. We don’t mind people making money, but we help sell more machines by reducing total cost of ownership, so I expected a little more support. At this point it just feels like big guys throwing their weight around
As always - a lot more printer integrations coming, as are more talks: I’ve just given one at the SMX event organized my SME & AMT, together with Runze from ExLattice and SK from Addiguru, on how modules (and their integration in MES) play an incredibly important part in creating a dynamic production system.
I’ve got other talks coming up too:
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At ASTM (on Nov 19 at 9:10am ET) I will spend more time talking about modules, this time without Runze and SK. Find out more and register here: https://amcoe.org/icam-2020
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At the TWI Additive Forum (Nov 26) I’ll be talking about the Authentise platform and the latest additions we’ve made. Find out more and register here: https://www.twi-global.com/media-and-events/events-diary/metal-additive-manufacturing-symposium
For those American friends of ours, there’s really only one event that counts: Nov 3. Have you already voted?
See you on the other side.
Andre
Prep Workflows
It’s Friday after Thanksgiving and I’m having a VERY tough time waking up from food coma. It seems that the lack of friends and family around just meant that I had more to eat. I hope wherever you are, you are safe and full too!
That comatose feeling clearly didn’t extend to the team because this month, they performed miracles. We’re in the final phases of testing a feature that I believe is transformative for us, not just for us but for the whole industry. Give me a minute to explain.
What is it?
We’re releasing what we call Prep Workflows. Users will already be familiar with the Production Workflow feature. This allows users to load a number of sequential process steps (and respective work instructions as well as specimens) can be added to a template and associated with a line item. This is a fundamental organizing principle of the production process which determines the sequence, machine type and cost of a part. Previously, the pre-production process was not as well organized. Users could simply select between a line item (each geometry of an order) being “Pending” and “Confirmed”. Of course, you all know that there are many steps that are conducted when an order is first reviewed, such as:
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Mesh Healing
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Creating an offer and receiving a PO
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Deciding on Support, Orientation and nesting strategies
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Final Parameter determination and simulation
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Approvals and Reviews
To organize these process steps and others, we’ve added the ability to assign workflow templates to line items. Each includes multiple sequential process steps, each of which can include multiple process steps including any of the ones listed above. You’ll also be able to add a description and expected timings (both processing and dwell times are estimated, and actuals recorded).
You can also assign specific user groups to process the process step. Only when all steps are complete is the object cleared for scheduling and production. You can add specific users to these user groups, which can be defined by administrators. This feature means that only authorized users are able to process the relevant steps and record details – this makes sure that only administrators complete the “review” stages for example, or only finance managers “sign off” on a PO. Of course, all these actions are recorded in the traceability report.
Why is it important?
The immediate benefit is clear:
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improved efficiency (fewer people trying to figure out what’s going on with a part)
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process adherence (ensure that the right people are doing the right thing at the right time)
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traceability (which includes the job costing baseline you need to improve your processes in the future)
But for Authentise, this release has greater relevance for two reasons:
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The concept of User Groups is much required throughout the platform. You’ll see us roll out these permission sets to more areas – such as production process steps – soon.
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Transparency will end up being the most valuable enabler. That is because the transparency enables insight into each production step, and with it the ability to automate it. If that sounds cryptic it’s because it is meant to. We’re working on some very special integrations that will allow engineering steps that are usually the most time intensive portion of the pre-production process to be automated using third-party algorithms. Those of you familiar with our 3Diax modules can probably see where we’re going with this.
As we’re leveraging the recent changes for more systemic impact, we’ll also be making incremental improvements that make the Prep Workflow feature even more user friendly and valuable. Watch this space.
So, that’s enough from me. I’ve got to get baking: Our team is having a Secret Cake Giving – team members post recipes on slack anonymously and somebody else on the team has to bake it for all to see. What are you doing to stay together while keeping a safe distance?
Hope to see you again soon!
Andre
Goodbye 2020
I hope this finds you safe, warm, and full. After this year, everybody deserves a break. Most of our team is out too, and I’m finding a small gap between meals to say thank you to you for supporting us and to the team for delivering an incredibly successful 2020. Those following my updates closely will have noted some of the highlights, but just in case, we’ve put them into a short video for you too:
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a few things that came together in the last month or so: The public reporting of some of the impact figures we had at Boeing, who, after only onboarding this year, have already:
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Seen a reduction in the time it takes to process an order by 80 percent.
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Reduced build preparation time by more than 95 percent on average.
Those are huge numbers, and there’s more to come – there are still indicators left to count, and updates to make. Often, they seem like benign improvements but they’re the product of listening closely to our customers and make a huge difference to them. One example from this month is the workflow preview, which makes final engineering reviews easier and more productive.
Another news flash from the video is our recently announced partnership with nebumind, which bookends a year of partnerships with the likes of Addiguru and others. With nebumind’s sensor data fusion, which merges machine data and geometries, we’ll be able to help our users identify potential problem areas quickly.
Partners like nebumind and Addiguru are guaranteed to make 2021 a success too, with a whole barrage of new features waiting to be deployed. We’ve got some big strategic aims too, including:
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Maturing: Meeting industry standards means tightening our processes. We’ve already made big moves in 2020, with first occurrences of planned downtime. In 2021 we’ll go further: one big goal is to meet the standards required of the medical industry.
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Non-Additive: Now that the product has proven itself in the additive industry, we’ll be making it available to those who focus on other processes, such as machining. There are some feature and business model changes to make to get there – expect some big announcements in Q1.
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Supply Chain: As you know, Authentise MES already has some pretty robust supply chain management features, allowing coordinated outsourcing of parts or specific steps. But there’s more opportunity in digitally integrated supply chains, and if 2020 has showed us anything, it’s that those innovations are desperately.
So, we’ve got our plates full and can’t wait to start, fresh and rested, into the New Year. Obviously, we’ll continue to do so in the way you’ve become accustomed to: by listening carefully to your feedback, connecting data streams where possible, and staying open to collaboration with all partners who, like us, want to help tear manufacturing into a new dawn
We hope that includes you. Thank you for your support in 2020. Merry Christmas and, as the Germans say, einen Guten Rutsch.
Andre