Industry 4.0 - Towards fabrication of mass-personalized parts on glass by Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving (SACE)

With the fourth industrial revolution manufacturing industry faces new challenges. Small batches of personalized parts must be produced in an economically viable manner. In this study, we show the feasibility of an approach using Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving to achieve personalized parts of hard-to-machine materials like glass with a low-cost setup. Key is the use of low-cost rapid prototyping and in-situ fabrication of the needed tooling, eliminating high indirect costs and long lead times. This approach can be used for on-demand manufacturing of personalized high precision applications of glass such as smartphone covers, advanced medical devices or fiber optic telecommunications.