Formally launched in March 2016, the America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC) is a cross-sector coordinating body whose objective is to accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications consistent with stakeholder needs and thereby facilitate the growth of the additive manufacturing industry. The AMSC was launched because a number of standards developing organizations (SDOs) are engaged in standards-setting for various aspects of additive manufacturing, prompting the need for coordination to maintain a consistent, harmonized, and non-contradictory set of additive manufacturing standards. The AMSC is not developing standards or specifications. Rather, its purpose is to help drive coordinated standards development activity.
On July 17, 2023, America Makes and ANSI announced the publication of the Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing, Version 3.0, developed by the AMSC. The roadmap describes the current and desired future standardization landscape for additive manufacturing (AM), and focuses on industrial market sectors using AM technologies. A total of 141 standardization gaps (including 60 new gaps) are identified with corresponding recommendations across the AM lifecycle areas of: design; precursor materials; process control; post-processing; finished material properties; qualification and certification; nondestructive evaluation; maintenance and repair; and data. The hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the user community to facilitate a more coordinated approach to the future development of AM standards.
Approximately 300 individuals from 150 public- and private-sector organizations supported the roadmap’s development, including representatives of U.S. federal government agencies and national laboratories, SDOs, industry, academia, and others. The document represents the culmination of the AMSC’s work since September 2022 to identify key safety, performance, and quality issues for AM technologies, relevant published standards and those in development, as well as to assess gaps. A “gap” means that a standard or specification does not exist addressing the issue in question.
The roadmap provides prioritized timeframes for when standards work should occur. Of the 141 gaps, 54 gaps/recommendations are identified as high priority, 64 as medium priority, and 23 as low priority. In 91 cases, additional pre-standardization research and development (R&D) is needed. The roadmap also identifies SDOs or others that may be able to develop the standards or perform the R&D. Looking ahead, the AMSC will continue to track progress by the SDOs to address the roadmap’s gaps and recommendations.
The impetus to develop an update to the roadmap—last published in June 2018—began following a 2022 survey on the use of the roadmap. The AMSC advisory group—comprised of industry, government, and SDO representatives—concluded it was time to update the document to maintain its relevancy and alignment with current practices and stakeholder needs.
The AMSC draws participation from private industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), material suppliers, government, academia, SDOs, and other interested stakeholders. Participation is open to additive manufacturing stakeholders that have operations in the U.S. America Makes membership and ANSI membership are encouraged but are not a prerequisite and there is no fee to participate at this time.
To develop the roadmap, the AMSC established nine working groups that typically held online meetings twice a month: WG1 design; WG2 pre cursor materials; WG3 process control; WG4 post-processing; WG5 finished material properties; WG6 qualification and certification; WG7 nondestructive evaluation; WG8 maintenance and repair; and WG9 data. Since the roadmap has now been published, the working groups are not currently meeting.
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America Makes is the nation’s leading public-private partnership for additive manufacturing technology and education. America Makes members from industry, academia, government, workforce and economic development organizations, work together to accelerate the adoption of AM and the nation’s global manufacturing competitiveness. Founded in 2012 as the Department of Defense’s manufacturing innovation institute for AM and first of the Manufacturing USA network, America Makes is based in Youngstown, Ohio and managed by the not-for-profit National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM).
Visit www.americamakes.us to learn more.
