Material Types offers a way to manage all of the different types of 3D printing material resources available at your business. Once a Material Type is added, the resource is now selectable throughout the platform.  Note that you will need to have Material Stocks for each Type

Material Types are an integral part of the Authentise MES platform and can be found in:

1. Orders (CAD Line Items)

2. Printer Types

3. Post Processor Types

4. Material (Stock) Management

Adding a New Material Type

To get started, navigate to "Manage" > "Material Types". Currently supported 3D printing materials for your Service Bureau are listed here. To add a new Material Type, click the "Add Material" button.

The Authentise platform is integrated with Senvol, a comprehensive, up-to-date database of industrial additive manufacturing machines and materials. Locate your 3D printing material by selecting:

1. the manufacturer of the material,

2. the material/product made by the selected manufacturer.

Once you have located your material, click the "Add" button to continue.

NOTE: If you are unable to locate your material, click the "My material isn't listed" button. 

You can now provide additional details about the 3D printing material that will be added to your bureau. 

Additional details include:

Description: a description of the material. For example, a user could describe the physical or chemical properties of the material or indicate the primary applications for the material.

Color: a color can be assigned to the material. It is recommended to assign colors that closely resemble the final color of the printed material. This will make the material selection process simpler and more intuitive for end-users when creating an order. For example, blue ABS plastic will have a blue color code.

Material Type: Every material must be assigned a Type. Current type options include 1) Base or 2) Support. Base is the primary 3D printing material the part will be manufactured with. Support is the secondary or supporting structure material that will be used in the manufacturing process.

Units: the unit of measurement for the 3D printing material. Our current list of supported units is gram (g) , kilogram (kg), pound (lb), cubic millimeter (mm3), cubic centimeter (cm3), liter (l), milliliter (ml), cubic inch (in3). Note: If you select a weight/mass-based unit, we will also require a density value to be entered so that we can convert between volumes and masses on your behalf.

Cost Per Unit: the cost per unit, based on the unit of measurement selected.

Manufacturing Process: The classification of the material by production/process. For example, a metal alloy powder material would be classified under the Powder Bed Fusion process. 

NOTE: a manufacturer or material name can't be modified if the material was selected from the Senvol list of 3D printing materials. To add a custom material name or manufacturer, click the "my material isn't listed" button when adding a new material. This will enable you to create a new material with a custom name and manufacturer but you cannot use the exact name that is used by the integrated list of materials. If you try, you will receive an error similar to the following. Please choose a slightly different name and proceed with your custom material.

Additional documents and external resources can also be included.

Additional Documents: additional supporting documentation such as Material Safety Data Sheet's, Material Handling documentation, Warranty Information, etc. 

External Datasheet URL:  A user can include a link to a web-hosted resource.

NOTE: if a URL is saved in the External Datasheet URL field, this will affect where the line item's material Go link redirects to. Instead of redirecting to the specified Material Type's Authentise page, the user will be routed to the entered URL.

Once all of the material information for the new material has been added, click "Save" to continue. Once saved, you will be routed back to the Material Types page where your newly added material is now visible in the list and a material optional available throughout the platform.

Modifying Material Type Fields

You may need to make updates or changes to data fields over time. Authentise MES enables a user to make modifications to most material type fields at any time, regardless of if the material is being referenced by a line item and/or the status of the line item that is making this reference.

Fields that can be updated at any time regardless of reference include:

• Name (if applicable)

• Description

• Manufacturer of a Material (if applicable)

• Color

• Cost per unit

• Manufacturing process

Click the "Save" button to save your changes. Once saved, you will be routed back to the main Materials Type page.

Deleting a Material Type

To delete a material, navigate to the material page. Click the drop-down button next to the Save button and select the Delete option to permanently delete the material. Once deleted, you will be routed back to the main Materials page.

SPECIAL NOTE:  If the material is referenced ie. used by a CAD line item, you will receive an error when trying to delete the material type. In order to delete the material, ALL line items that reference this material must first be deleted. Once ALL line items with this material reference are deleted, the material type can be deleted. 

An alternative to deletion of material types is archiving. Let us know if you would be interested in archiving material types. We would be happy to implement this functionality for you!

Adding Material Stocks

Adding a Material Stock, for a given Material Type at a given Location, signifies that this Material is able to be ordered from that Location. You can add Material Stocks from the Material Type page by clicking the(+) button or by adding a Stock on the Material Stocks Inventory Page (https://rapidfab.authentise.com/#/inventory/stocks). Note: you will want to add stock for every Location that will be offering a Material.

Based on Stocks, a filter of available material types is applied to your Line Item forms. You will see this information (?) bubble's attempt to explain how this filtering of the Material's list is done.

Note that tracking a Stock's actual levels is optional for bureaus that are not using our Material Management Module.  This streamlines your management in the case where you do not want to track your inventory manually within Authentise but you will still benefit from this filtering behavior.

Material Stocks - Automatic Ordering Thresholds

Authentise uses a concept of Automatic Ordering Thresholds to establish upper and lower bounds to help you manage the Ordering of additional Material to ensure your stock levels maintain a safe and comfortable level. When this capability is used, the system will trigger an email notification to users with the Manager role in your bureau directing them to order additional material. The system will also create an Action for those users until the stock level is increased about the alerting threshold. In addition to these automated reminders, these thresholds can be used to generate requests to your integrated ERP solution to automatically generate PO's (or to kickoff your internal ordering business processes). The setup of this capability is further explained below!

Within each Material Stock you are able to set what we call an Automated Ordering Threshold. In practice, this will act as your Material alerting level. 

1. Enable this option for this Stock: For each Stock that you would like inventory Alerts, check this box.

2. On Order Quantity: This field will calculate automatically if you are using our Material Management Module. It summarizes the expected material quantities of all Lots that you have On Order to this Location.

   
   

3. Minimum Material: This is the value that will trigger your automatic notification. If the amount of Material that is in your Inventory Lot Stock (ie. the amount of Material that is NOT in a batch) + your On Order Lot Stock falls below this level, a Notification will be sent to all users in the Bureau with the role Manager. We will also generate an Action for those users, which is viewable on their Home Page's My Actions component.

   
   

4. Maximum Material: This value can be used for ERP integrations to automate the size of PO that is necessary when Stock falls below the Minimum level. If you do not have an ERP Integration. we recommend you can put a reasonable value into this field.