The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) congratulates its standards facilitation senior director Jim McCabe, and Jim Williams, president of All Points Additive and chair of the America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC), who are the co-recipients of the 2017 America Makes Distinguished Collaborator Award. The award was presented to them at the America Makes Members Meeting and Exchange in Youngstown, OH on November 15.
America Makes is the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute. The Distinguished Collaborator Award is the Institute's highest honor and was established in 2014 to recognize individuals or organizations with an exceptional commitment and dedication to advancing additive manufacturing technology, practices, and innovation in the manufacturing industry.
Launched in 2016, the AMSC was established to accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications consistent with stakeholders needs, and thereby facilitate the growth of the additive manufacturing industry. About a year after its launch, the collaborative published a standardization roadmap for additive manufacturing that identifies existing standards and specifications, as well as those in development, assesses gaps, and makes recommendations for priority areas where there is a perceived need for additional standardization.
While the AMSC does not develop standards or specifications, the roadmap is intended to help drive coordinated standards development activity. Some 260 individuals from over 150 public- and private-sector organizations contributed to the roadmap's development, with substantial representation from the aerospace, defense, and medical industries. Collaborative participants include representatives from private industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), material suppliers, government, academia, standards developing organizations (SDOs), and other interested stakeholders.
Phase two of the AMSC's work was recently launched to update and expand the document and to engage other industry sectors such as ground vehicles/heavy equipment, energy, and industrial and commercial machinery. [See related articles below]. The target date for publication of the roadmap update is June 2018.
Rob Gorham, America Makes' executive director, presented the award with America Makes' founding director Ralph Resnick at the historic Henry H. Stambaugh Auditorium ballroom in Youngstown. "While a number of standards developing organizations have been engaged in standards-setting for various aspects of AM, a coordinated effort was very much needed to maintain a consistent, harmonized, and non-contradictory set of AM standards and specifications," said Mr. Gorham. "With Jim Williams and Jim McCabe leading the charge and what they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time is a huge achievement and a testament to their dedication," he said in a statement.
Mr. McCabe, who joined ANSI in 1995, is also responsible for the launch of the ANSI Unmanned Aircraft Systems Standardization Collaborative to coordinate and accelerate the development of the standards and conformity assessment programs needed to facilitate the safe integration of unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, into the national airspace system of the U.S.
Related Coverage:
America Makes and ANSI Publish Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing