2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Smart manufacturing technologies improve the productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness for U.S. industries. Key enabling technologies in smart manufacturing are to 1) acquire real-time heterogeneous data from IoTs, sensors, and machines tools, and 2) make decisions from the data using analytics. This Maker project discusses the development of a prototype Application software for a 3D printer based on MTConnect protocol. This Application is able to collect, visualize, and store data from additive manufacturing processes. This project aims to train students about 1) MTConnnect on Adapter, Agent, and Application development, 2) additive manufacturing, 3) database, and 5) communication protocols, for manufacturing operations. The results developed through this project potentially can be used in the “Manufacturing Automation” course to teach students concepts related to the MTConnect.