Advancing Additive #11 – The value of EOS North America reselling Siemens software with its machines

On February 23, we announced that EOS North America would be integrating and reselling our AM software with its 3D printing systems. This is a big deal for Siemens, because EOS is the leading provider for industrial 3D printing of metal and polymer.

It’s also a big deal for EOS customers. Andrew Snow, the senior vice president of EOS North America, put it this way: “The ability to offer our customers a combination of Siemens’ AM software with EOS machines is an important step toward industrializing additive manufacturing for larger-scale production. We want to ensure that our customers can be as successful printing their first part today as they will their ten-thousandth part tomorrow, which means our machines must go beyond build preparation to connect to the entire end-to-end AM process. This new agreement with Siemens will help accomplish this.” 

The integration of NX AM software with EOS’ job and process management software EOSPRINT 2 enables users to generate EOS build files directly in NX, defining material, exposure sets, and beam offset values, among other variables. Users can also get previews of the layer-by-layer hatching pattern of their EOS-printed parts before they generate the files for EOSPRINT. Here’s a quick video of how easy the connection is:

More streamlined build preparation is just the immediate advantage of this new integration between Siemens AM software and EOS 3D print systems. The greater value is its overall impact on the efficiency and profitability of the AM Factory. Instead of only providing the build preparation for a single machine, EOS can now offer customers access to a unified process upstream to transform design, and downstream to realize high-volume AM factory production. This unified process is critical for industrialized AM.

As part of this new agreement, EOS North America can also resell NX AM Build Optimizer, which was the former Sunata software from recently acquired Atlas 3D. Beyond this, EOS customers can leverage other Siemens capabilities across the AM digital thread, including design for additive, topology optimization, build process simulation, materials engineering and durability analysis, design validation, scheduling and execution, process automation, performance monitoring and product lifecycle management.

This is a much better solution for forward-looking companies planning to industrialize additive manufacturing. The software alternatives are essentially point solutions across the AM workflow, which introduce time-consuming, error-prone inefficiencies every time data conversion or file changes are required.

The bottom line: this agreement is a big win for Siemens, EOS—and, most importantly, all those companies looking to industrialize additive manufacturing.

About the writer:
Aaron Frankel is Vice President of Siemens’ additive manufacturing software program. He has over 20 years of experience in the PLM software industry and has held various positions in engineering services, product management, and marketing – all focused on helping manufacturers take advantage of the latest digital design and manufacturing technology.