Defining Technologies

This article guides you through configuring existing and additional technologies to adjust the default AMPI part assessment to your needs. Our part assessment is based on technological and economic parameters comparing multiple technologies. By default, only our standard Additive Manufacturing technologies are considered, which can be accessed via the Admin Panel (“Catalogue” → “Technologies”).

1 How can I control, which technologies are considered in the part assessment?
2 How can I control, which manufacturability checks are shown for a technology?
3 What is the meaning of the different technology manufacturability check results?
4 How can I customise the thresholds of manufacturability check results for a technology?
5 How can I configure a technology for economic assessment?
6 How can I customise the economic assessment for standard technologies?
7 How can I test/debug the technology script results for costs and/or lead time?
8 Can I configure a conventional technology for part assessment?
9 How are these values accessible in general scoring/reporting (standard & custom)?
10 Who maintains the default technology scripts of 3YOURMINDs standard technologies?

How can I control, which technologies are considered in the part assessment?

Technologies can be added or removed by changing the “Used In PLM Analysis” flag, a configuration option of all technologies in the Admin Panel. If enabled, the technology becomes generally available in the part’s “reports” tab and its technological and economical assessment (incl. all scores).

How can I control, which manufacturability checks are shown for a technology?

Manufacturability checks can be activated per technology and per check via the Admin Panel. If disabled, a “Not Applicable” is shown for this check in the technological part assessment.

What is the meaning of the different technology manufacturability check results?

Result	Description	Overall Manufacturability

Result	Description	Overall Manufacturability
GOOD	The part fulfils this technology's requirements for a certain manufacturability check.	If all checks show GOOD the overall technology manufacturability is GOOD.
REVIEW	The part likely fulfils this technology's requirements for a certain manufacturability check but has critical parameters which require review. more details	If at least one check shows REVIEW, the overall technology manufacturability is REVIEW.
WARNING	The part likely does not fulfil this technology's requirements for a certain manufacturability check due to critical parameters. more details	If at least one check shows WARNING, the overall technology manufacturability is WARNING.
REDESIGN	The part does not fulfil this technology's requirements for a certain manufacturability check.	If at least one check shows REDESIGN, the overall technology manufacturability is REDESIGN.
NOT APPLICABLE	The manufacturability check does not apply to this technology. more details	Checks showing “NOT APPLICABLE” do not affect the overall technology manufacturability.
ERROR*	The manufacturability check could not execute properly, an error was thrown.	If at least one check shows ERROR, the overall technology manufacturability is ERROR.

*Please create a bug if you come across any part showing ERROR for any manufacturability check

How can I customise the thresholds of manufacturability check results for a technology?

Manufacturability check results have certain thresholds for check-specific parameters. They specify if the calculated result for a certain check shall be interpreted as: GOOD, REVIEW, REDESIGN or WARNING. The standard thresholds of standard technologies can be customised by overwriting them with custom thresholds in the dedicated fields in the admin panel.

Example: I want to show “REVIEW” for walls that are between 1.6 and 3 mm thin:

How can I configure a technology for economic assessment?

Our standard economic assessment considers all technologies marked as “Used In PLM Analysis”. However, before seeing any data you need to specify the costing and lead time script for the technologies (you can review the standard AM technologies and their scripts for reference). They are configurable in the Admin Panel in the technology’s “Scripts” section and have to return a specific data structure:

Costs script return statement structure
return { "material": <integer>, "overhead": <integer>, "labor": <integer>, // There could be more <integer> fields here "total": <integer>, // Saved and used as the overall technology part costs }
Lead time script return statement structure
return { // There could be more <integer> fields here "leadTime": <integer>, // Saved and used as the overall technology part lead time }

The script’s return statement structure must be maintained, otherwise the results cannot be stored/accessed automatically.

Existing parts need to be reanalysed to see results for the new technology (or updated scripts).

How can I customise the economic assessment for standard technologies?

Each standard technology has 2 ways of customisation for economic assessment:

Technology script constants
In the “Scripts” section of a technology in the Admin Panel, you find an editable JavaScript field “Constants”. It contains multiple parameters that might be adjusted to your needs (e.g. reference labor costs).
Technology script custom overrides
In the “Scripts” section of a technology in the Admin Panel, you can override the default scripts via the editable JavaScript fields (costs and lead time). You can place a different script in here that is overwriting the standard and read-only version.

The script’s return statement structure must be maintained, otherwise the results cannot be stored/accessed automatically.

Existing parts need to be reanalysed to see results for the new technology (or updated scripts).

How can I test/debug the technology script results for costs and/or lead time?

For testing the technology’s economic scripts you need to have a part with the necessary data (e.g. current part price) and search it in the Admin Panel’s “Parts” list. Now you can either:

Check the technology script results
Click on the part to open its detail page. Scroll to the bottom to find the section “Part Technologies Results” where all script results are stored together with their respective savings. Where:
Cost Savings = Current Part Price - Technology Costs Script Result
Lead Time Savings = Current Lead Time - Technology Lead Time Script Result
Run the technology script tester
Alternatively, you can directly run the scripts and see their context and output by clicking the “Technology Script Tester” button in the “Links” column on the “Parts” list.

You can then select any technology on the left, wait a few seconds during execution, and finally see the context and results for the given part:

Can I configure a conventional technology for part assessment?

Yes, you can configure a technology and type it “Conventional” and still get technological and economic assessments as long as it is configured accordingly. This enables you to compare an alternative operational source (e.g. CNC) with Additive Manufacturing technologies within 3YOURMIND.

How are these values accessible in general scoring/reporting (standard & custom)?

Both the technical and economic assessment of technologies is available within the context of scores via the variables object - more specifically via variables.technologies. It contains a list of all technologies configured for assessment (“Used In PLM Analysis” flag) and their manufacturability check and economic script results. The structure is the following:

"technologies": {
        "bj": {
            "printability": {
                "overallAssessment": {
                    "result": "WARNING"
                },
                "materialClass": {
                    "result": "GOOD",
                    ... //parameters
                },
                ... //more checks
            },
            "costs": {
                "total": 150
                ... //additional cost values
            },
            "leadTime": {
                "leadTime": 5
                ... //additional lead time values
            }
        },
        //the technology slug is used as a key and can be retrieved from CONSTANTS.technologies
        "mjf": {
            ... //sames as above for all technologies
        },
        ... //more technologies
}

Who maintains the default technology scripts of 3YOURMINDs standard technologies?

Our standard technologies and their scripts are maintained by 3YOURMIND engineers. Updates of these scripts might happen in the scope of releases or even hotfixes if necessary. This being said, custom overrides are always executed over default scripts and thus must be maintained manually by a platform admin.

Custom override values for constants are usually maintained during automatic default script updates.