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Perspectives

Digital Thread for Additive Manufacturing (DTAM)

In today’s increasingly complex production and sustainment environments, organizations are responding to constraints in their supply chain and manufacturing by looking to additive manufacturing (AM). However, to use AM at industrial scale, organizations need to manage a series of complicated, connected, and data-driven events. The digital thread, a single seamless strand of data that stretches from the initial design to the finished part, is the key to optimizing AM production capability.

Untangling the Digital Thread

Following the digital thread

Watch Following the digital thread, our eight-part series with MIT Sloan Management Review that explores the digital thread and its potential to revolutionize design, production, and supply chains.

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​​Bringing complementary capabilities

By linking together disparate applications, printers, processes, and associated data, the digital thread can collect, manage, and analyze valuable information from every stage of the product lifecycle, driving insights for continuous process and product optimization.


Together Deloitte and Siemens have created a Digital Thread for Additive Manufacturing (DTAM):

Siemens helps organizations of all sizes digitally transform using software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Siemens' software and the comprehensive digital twin enable companies to optimize their design, engineering and manufacturing processes to turn today's ideas into the sustainable products of the future.

Learn more about the Deloitte and Siemens alliance.

Deloitte rounds out the DTAM offering by guiding the enabling processes and providing enterprise-wide maturity assessments. Deloitte has demonstrated expertise with the management and architecture of information systems, workforce development and planning, and engineering process optimization. These can be brought together to inform tailored operating models and business case analyses for implementing DTAM.

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Stepping through the digital thread

More from Deloitte Insights

Deloitte 3D opportunity and the digital thread

Additive manufacturing ties it all together
While additive manufacturing has become a crucial part of the design process, it has not reached critical mass at the enterprise level. The digital thread—a single, seamless strand of data that stretches from the initial design to the finished part—can help scale and enhance AM capabilities.​

Deloitte 3D opportunity for scan, design, and analyze

The first phase of the digital thread
The digital thread is a single, seamless strand that carries data through the AM process. Reaping the benefits of AM requires an in-depth understanding of the digital thread—including the first phase, scan/design + analyze, which lays the groundwork for subsequent stages.​

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