When Materialise launched its CO-AM platform about three years ago, the company aimed to leverage cloud-based engineering capabilities to enhance the openness of the additive manufacturing (AM) software experience and help customers to further streamline their AM workflows. The Belgian software and AM services provider made additional strides in that direction last year when it announced their role in establishing the Leading Minds consortium, an endeavor pushing for a “common language framework” in the AM industry, featuring heavyweights from every portion of the value chain.
Now, at Formnext 2025 (November 18-21), Materialise is presenting three new software solutions as part of the CO-AM ecosystem, powered by two new tools: CO-AM Brix, which uses node-based programming to automate design workflow; and CO-AM Build Platform, which aids users in building and platform prep. The three new offerings that those tools support are CO-AM Professional, CO-AM NPI, and CO-AM Enterprise.
Materialise Process Control user interface.
CO-AM Professional is tailored towards “high-mix, low-volume AM”, automating build/platform prep to enable one of the greatest advantages of industrial 3D printing. CO-AM NPI is specifically for New Part Introduction, helping users accelerate the path to qualification, a task Materialise is well-versed in.
Finally, CO-AM Enterprise adds “end-to-end workflow management” to the process preparation capabilities enabled by CO-AM Professional, giving users full visibility into their AM workflow. According to Materialise, the company’s work with the Leading Minds consortium has been instrumental in developing CO-AM, including the latest releases.
Materialise also announced a new partnership with Nikon SLM Solutions at Formnext, focused on solving a long-standing challenge in metal AM: moving from early part development to real, repeatable production. The two companies are working together on a single data-preparation workflow that produces complete, build-ready job files in one validated process. Nikon SLM has also approved Materialise’s new NextGen SLM Build Processor, which supports fast, multi-laser metal printers. The partnership follows the same direction as the latest CO-AM updates, aiming for more industrial, connected, and reliable AM workflows.
Materialise Next Gen Build Processor.
Formnext attendees can learn more about the new Materialise solutions at the company’s booth, C139 in Hall 12.1.
In a press release about Materialise’s three new additions to its CO-AM platform, the company’s VP of Software, Udo Eberlein, said, “Industrializing [AM] isn’t a software or a hardware problem; it’s a manufacturing problem. It requires understanding the complete workflow, the real constraints, and the practical trade-offs that production teams face every day. We’re tailoring our offerings to meet the specific needs of the market, from standard to the most advanced users, bringing NPI and Enterprise solutions to help them scale AM with confidence.”
Eberlein added, “The AM industry needs an AM ecosystem that connects tools and automates workflows. No point solution will solve this challenge. Platforms without deep domain knowledge risk becoming abstraction layers, convenient until they’re not, flexible until you need something they didn’t anticipate. Materialise delivers decades of software expertise earned through close collaboration with our partners and factory-floor knowledge. CO-AM is how we put that knowledge to work for the entire industry.”
The AM industry does seem to be subtly displaying that it’s reaching a tipping point with this year’s Formnext releases — industry leaders with decades of know-how are “put[ting] that knowledge to work for the entire industry.” That’s what Leading Minds consortium member EOS did with the release of the M4 ONYX, for instance.
That approach is probably even more urgently needed on the software side of the industry, at this point. I don’t think it’s appreciated nearly enough, the extent to which cloud-based manufacturing upends the logic by which the manufacturing sector has always operated. It’s a shift from keeping everything as close to the vest as possible to becoming comfortable with the idea that your data can be transmitted securely all over the world.
There are few companies better credentialed to lead that charge than Materialise, and it’s reassuring to see the company draw on its connections with Leading Minds members like EOS, Stratasys, Nikon SLM Solutions, and Ansys, among others, in its efforts to optimize the cloud for AM. I think that these three new features give us an idea of what we can expect as the CO-AM ecosystem continues to evolve: a solution for every major category of AM user.
The NPI solution, in particular, is something that should gain a lot of traction in the industry right now. Making a faster path to qualification widely available on a commercial scale is the sort of selling point that could serve as the basis for a new era of market dominance.
Images courtesy of Materialise
Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter
Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.
