PRESENCE OF INDUSTRY 4.0 ON ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS ANALYSIS

Abstract

Industry 4.0 is an initiative aimed to achieve intelligent factories with advantages such as autonomy and real time response since it integrates internet-based technologies. It is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that is estimated to produce a big transformation from personal to industrial domains. On the other hand, additive manufacturing involves a layer by layer production method that allows fabrication of complex and customized products and also presents a revolutionary impact. Industry 4.0 and additive manufacturing exhibit highly accelerated changes; therefore, it is relevant to identify advances that emerge, but in both areas rather than individually. For this reason, a Competitive Technology Intelligence analysis was carried out, which was based on patents of additive manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0. The purpose was to identify trends in technological inventions. Insights indicate that so far, the incursion of the Industry 4.0 in additive manufacturing is still incipient, so the number of patents is reduced. Nevertheless, the results exhibit three core areas: intelligent manufacturing, the internet of things, and cloud manufacturing. Most inventions correspond to control methods and their devices, enabling additive manufacturing with greater autonomy and networking. Patents mainly come from China and USA. In terms of patenting activity, the principal organizations are Zhang Ping (China), Intel Corp (USA), Shenzhen Naishidi (China) and Hewlett Packard (USA). The results show that both additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0 are evolving fast with greater growth in number of patents as of 2015. Therefore, it is expected increased digitalization of additive manufacturing in the future. Keywords: additive manufacturing, industry 4.0, patent analysis, technology trends.