As additive manufacturing scales across industries, digital inventories are transforming how spare parts, tooling, and components are stored, qualified, and deployed. But their impact goes far beyond AM — digital inventories now support a wide range of modern manufacturing workflows, from rapid casting to CNC machining and hybrid production
🏭 Beyond Additive: Expanded Use Cases
🧱 Rapid Casting
Digital inventories streamline the creation of casting molds and cores by storing validated geometries for sand printing or investment casting. Platforms like Spare Parts 3D and Fieldnode support casting-ready formats and workflows, reducing lead times and tooling costs.
⚙️ CNC Machining
Inventories can store subtractive-ready geometries, material specs, and tolerancing data. This enables seamless RFQ generation, vendor matching, and hybrid workflows where parts are printed near-net-shape and finished via CNC
🧪 Hybrid Manufacturing
Digital inventories support workflows where additive, subtractive, and casting processes are combined. For example, a part may be printed via Binder Jetting, sintered, and then machined to final spec — all tracked through a unified digital passport
📜 Standards & Interoperability
🧭 DNV-RP-B205: Digital Inventory Standard
Defines how parts should be stored, qualified, and accessed across distributed manufacturing networks. Includes traceability, documentation, and lifecycle management.
🪪 Digital Passports
Structured data packages that travel with each part — containing geometry, material specs, qualification records, and inspection data. Enable traceable, repeatable production across AM, casting, and machining.
🔄 Interoperability Efforts
AMSC, DNV, ASTM, and ISO are working to harmonize digital inventory formats, qualification workflows, and data schemas — enabling seamless exchange of part data across platforms, OEMs, and suppliers.
🚀 Why It Matters
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Reduces downtime and physical inventory costs
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Supports standards-compliant qualification (e.g., API 20S, API 20T)
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Bridges additive, subtractive, and casting workflows
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Enhances traceability and repeatability across vendors
Ready to digitize your manufacturing workflows?
Let’s work together to build a resilient, standards-compliant inventory strategy that spans additive, subtractive, and casting processes.