Building a digital twin for additive manufacturing through the exploitation of blockchain: A case analysis of the aircraft industry

Blockchain is becoming a widespread digital technology that allows every transaction to be tracked in an inviolable way, hence making it possible to go back through the entire history of products and product components. Its idiosyncratic characteristics can be especially useful in the aircraft industry, a highly technologically-based sector, wherein manufacturers of components are governed by stringent technical standards, the aim of which is to certify and monitor the whole component production process. In addition, the sector makes significant use of additive manufacturing technologies to perform the rapid prototyping of product components, realized through the supply chain, hence reducing time-to-market, while ensuring quality and containing costs. Starting from these premises, the paper focuses on the phases characterizing the metal additive manufacturing process, in which a component for the aircraft industry can be produced and proposes a digital twin for additive manufacturing in the aircraft industry through the exploitation of Blockchain solutions. In doing so, the paper provides a conceptual answer to securing and organizing the data generated through an end-to-end additive manufacturing process in the aircraft industry and underlines how companies exploiting Blockchain can build secure and connected manufacturing infrastructure.