Connected Quality Data Cuts Melotte’s AM Root-Cause Analysis Time
Industrial additive manufacturing specialist Melotte has significantly reduced the manual effort involved in managing AM quality data after implementing amsight, while also accelerating root-cause analysis and strengthening the quality evidence available to customers.
Before amsight, Melotte’s production and quality information was spread across Excel files, manual records, machine-held sensor data, CT reports, and separate maintenance documentation. The information existed, but connecting it into a usable picture of part and process history was labour-intensive.
That situation will be familiar to many AM manufacturers moving from development into repeatable production: More customers, tighter specifications, and greater scrutiny turn scattered data into a genuine production constraint.
“For us, the problem was never a lack of data, it was bringing the data together in a way we could actually use,” says Thomas Vandenberghe, Designer at Melotte. “With amsight, we now have build, CT, sensor, and maintenance information connected in one environment. That gives us a much clearer view of what is happening across the process.”
The impact is already measurable. Before amsight, Melotte spent approximately three hours every week gathering data and importing it into Excel files. That has been reduced to around 20 minutes per week. Root-cause investigations that previously took three to four hours searching documentation and connecting information can now typically be completed in 30 minutes or less, depending on the issue.
Linking CT Results with Build Information
The improvement goes beyond administration. Melotte has used connected production data to identify process issues more quickly, including tracing an increase in CT-detected defects to one laser within a dual-laser system. By linking CT results with build information, the team could isolate where the problem originated and take corrective action.
“Root-cause analysis used to mean going from one file to another, then back to the machine to inspect sensor data,” Vandenberghe continues. “Now we can see these relationships much more quickly. It gives us the broader process view we simply did not have before.”
Melotte serves demanding industrial markets including semiconductor, aerospace, and defence, where customers increasingly require evidence that production is controlled, traceable, and repeatable.
For amsight, the Melotte implementation demonstrates why production AM needs more than printer monitoring or document storage. amsight acts as an AM-specific digital quality backbone, connecting powder, machine, process, post-processing, and inspection evidence at part level to support traceability, SPC, audit-ready reporting, and faster root-cause analysis.
Vandenberghe concludes: “If you want to supply complex production parts into demanding markets, quality data management is not an optional extra. You need the evidence chain behind the part. amsight gives us a much stronger foundation for that.”
For more information: www.amsight.de
