ProfitKey recently released its nPower Scheduler for additive manufacturing, offering the unique ability to look beyond the “printer” and schedule all elements of the additive manufacturing process, including post-print production.

“ProfitKey developed the nPower Scheduler, the first truly comprehensive scheduler for additive manufacturing, to address the complex scheduling requirements associated with diverging manufacturing processes,” said Kevin O’Keefe, CEO at ProfitKey. “Production doesn’t just stop after the printer. Additive manufacturing encompasses from build plate setup through the additional value-add operations until shipment to the customer. The nPower Scheduler schedules the entire additive manufacturing shop floor.”

“This new scheduling software provides companies with more efficient use of their manufacturing resources, optimizes uptime for all 3D printers and other premium work centers, reduces costs, and returns higher productivity per manufacturing square foot,” said David Bennett, SVP of development and marketing at ProfitKey. “Our research with leading additive manufacturers indicates companies, on average, will achieve an annual ROI of five times their investment in the nPower Scheduler.”

Key features of the nPower Scheduler include:

• The concurrent scheduling of materials (powders, polymers, etc.), work centers, operators, and outside services across the entire additive manufacturing shop floor.
• Time-phased netting of material at every additive machine, enabling each machine to be scheduled based on the expected material availability and the requirements to produce each part.
• The innovative option of ‘controlled asset auto selection,’ enabling the scheduler to select and schedule work centers based on matrices of machines approved to produce each final product.
• The use of setup optimization to group of operations into a single setup across multiple work orders, gaining improved production efficiency by reducing the overall production time through the work center.
• A mapping interface that allows integration to any ERP or order/resource system.
• The end-to-end scheduling solution eliminates the many hours of manual, and often inaccurate, spreadsheet scheduling that is typically also limited to just the additive machines without accounting for post-processing operations.

As a Platinum Sponsor of the 2024 Additive Manufacturing Users group (AMUG) Conference to be held March 10-14, 2024, in Chicago, ProfitKey will exhibit the nPower Scheduler and will present an informative session on scheduling in additive manufacturing environments.

ProfitKey nPower Scheduler
profitkey.com/npowertech