- Why is secured printing important for additive manufacturing?
- What are the key security considerations for protecting the 3D printing process and intellectual property?
Additive manufacturing (AM) brings considerable technical and commercial flexibility but also requires applying more complicated workflows and quality assurance processes through the entire manufacturing process. This introduces new security challenges, making secured printing an important solution.
While many consider the design IP protection as the main reason for why OEM are adopting secured printing today, ensuring the origin and design intent of the design are also key factors for adopting secured printing.
OEMs are kept accountable for Parts that they design and deliver to their end customer. They would like to know that the parts are printed exactly as designed with relevant optional part identification.
Design for AM will usually include improvements and new functional design of parts. OEM have many reasons to try and make sure they have a way to prevent suppliers from copying the new generated IP, being able to print parts with non-approved machines or processes, or not according to the approved (certified) design specifications.
Secured printing in additive manufacturing refers to the comprehensive measures taken to protect the entire digital thread and physical process from unauthorized access, manipulation, or intellectual property (IP) theft.
- Data Integrity and Confidentiality: Ensuring that sensitive design files, build recipes, and print parameters are protected from unauthorized viewing or alteration throughout their lifecycle (design to print). This prevents malicious actors from creating counterfeit parts or compromising part performance and quality.
- Intellectual Property (IP) Protection: Safeguarding proprietary designs and manufacturing know-how, which are digitally represented and easily transferable in AM. This is crucial for competitive advantage and preventing industrial espionage.
- Supply Chain Integrity: Ensuring that parts produced are authentic and meet specifications, guarding against the introduction of rogue or substandard components into critical applications (e.g., Aerospace, Energy, Healthcare).
- Quality and Safety: Preventing malicious alterations that could lead to part failures, compromising product quality, or even endangering lives (e.g., a critical aerospace component printed with weakened parameters).
How will Oqton help you to secure your design file IP?
Oqton provide customers a comprehensive solution to protect the digital IP by ensuring that a CAD (design) file that is sent to any of your suppliers cannot be copied or changed, other than applying the necessary AM build preparation required aspects in order to manufacture the Part.
To achieve this Oqton provide a way for the OEM to encrypt and protect his design file IP such that the design file can only be decrypted by an authorized supplier. The decryption process requires an authentication of your supplier.
Second, the secured files and IP are locked within the build preparation solution, so your supplier cannot copy or export the secured file data in any way.
Eventually, the supplier is only allowed to prepare the file for printing by setting the part orientation and setup on the tray, adding Support structures were needed, and slice the geometry for the target printer and material – all access can be configured upfront.
Use case with 3D Systems and Daimler Truck. Learn more about this here.
Key functions of how Oqton enable secured printing
- Maintaining Data Integrity: By working directly with native CAD data (B-rep) rather than relying solely on less secure mesh formats (like STL) that usually require healing and can introduce errors or be easily manipulated, 3DXpert helps ensure the design intent is preserved from the initial concept to the final slice. This minimizes opportunities for accidental data corruption or misalignment.
- Controlling the Digital Thread: Its integrated environment means design, build preparation (orientation, support generation, nesting), simulation, and slicing all occur within a single solution. This reduces the risk of data loss or unauthorized alterations that can happen when transferring files between disparate software tools.
- Intellectual Property (IP) Protection: Safeguarding proprietary designs and manufacturing know-how, which are digitally represented and easily transferable in AM.
- Data Integrity and Confidentiality: Ensuring that sensitive design files, build recipes, and print parameters are protected from unauthorized viewing or alteration throughout their lifecycle (design to print).
- Network and Machine Security: Protecting the communication pathways between OEM and their Suppliers or customers, by providing a secured platform to exchange data and trace the usage.
To conclude, utilizing advanced software solutions from Oqton, the commitment to security becomes embedded throughout the build preparation process, significantly enhancing the integrity and confidentiality of your 3D printing operations.
Learn more on how we help companies to adopt AM to their workflows here