*Article* **An Agent-Based Decision Support Platform for Additive Manufacturing Applications**

#### **Nikolaos Papakostas \*, Anthony Newell and Abraham George**

Laboratory for Advanced Manufacturing Simulation and Robotics, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin 4, Ireland; anthony.newell@ucd.ie (A.N.); abraham.george@ucdconnect.ie (A.G.)

**\*** Correspondence: nikolaos.papakostas@ucd.ie; Tel.: +353-1-716-1741

Received: 23 June 2020; Accepted: 14 July 2020; Published: 18 July 2020

**Abstract:** The effective estimation and consideration of process cost, time, and quality for additive manufacturing operations, when a series of suitable technologies and resources are available, is very important for making informed product design and development decisions. The main objective of this paper is to propose the design, deployment, and use of an agent-based decision support platform, which is capable of proposing alternative additive manufacturing resources and process configurations to design engineers while reducing the number of communication steps among engineering teams and organizations. Different computer-aided systems are utilised and interfaced for automating the information exchange as well as for accelerating the overall product development process.

**Keywords:** process planning; scheduling; design for additive manufacturing; multiple criteria
